July 4 next year will be 50 years since the heads of government of the four biggest (and independent) Caribbean countries signed the Treaty of Chaguaramas (the CARICOM Treaty) that brought the Caribbean Community and Common Market into effect on August 1, 1973 – at least, on paper. Eight other Caribbean countries, which had been members of a more limited grouping, CARIFTA, that had been in existence since 1968, joined CARICOM a few months later.