The Caribbean Sea Commission (CSC) was established by the
Association of Caribbean States (ACS) in 2007, as a structured
mechanism to promote the sustainable development of the
Caribbean Sea (Association of Caribbean States 2007, 2). Chief
among its mandates is the elaboration of the Caribbean Sea
Initiative (CSI)—the proposal tabled by Member States of the ACS
at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 1999, calling
for designation of the Caribbean Sea, as a ‘special area,’ within the
context of sustainable development. The CSI envisaged governance
of the Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) “not by reference
to any single mode of use or abuse of that sub-oceanic basin, but
within the comprehensive context of sustainable development”
(Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean 2002,
1). It was informed by various Multilateral Environmental
Agreements (MEAs), including the United Nations Programme of
Action on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing
States, known as the Barbados Programme of Action (BPOA), and
its Paragraph 25 on oceans; as well as the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), specifically its Article
123 on cooperation among coastal States, bordering semi-enclosed
seas (ibid).