Christie Justus Law — Research Papers · CJL-WP 2026/04
Naomi Eglantine Christie · LL.B. (Distinction) · L.E.C. (Honours) · LL.M., New York University, 2015 — International Legal Studies · Attorney-at-Law, admitted to the Bar of Guyana, October 2013, and to the Bar of Grenada, 2014.
September 2026 · 27 pages · 121 footnotes · PDF
The Commonwealth Caribbean completed two regional frameworks for the governance of artificial intelligence between December 2025 and July 2026, and no CARICOM state has enacted a statute on the subject. This paper argues that the question the region is asking — which model law to adopt — is the wrong one. The binding constraint on legislative effectiveness in these states is not enactment but commencement. The record is verified: Guyana's Data Protection Act 2023, uncommenced three years after assent; the Judicial Review Act 2010, brought into force only after a court order in 2018; a constitutional Human Rights Commission never operationalised; and the partly proclaimed data-protection statutes of the region. On that record the scarcest legislative resource is the commencement order, and the institution a statute presupposes. An AI statute modelled on the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act, which runs on notifying authorities, notified bodies, market surveillance and conformity assessment, would produce a second uncommenced Act. The paper reads the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence closely and argues that it is the fitting international anchor for a small state: open to accession by non-member states; principles-based and cast as obligations of result; directed at rights and remedies that map onto a supreme-law constitution and a common-law judiciary ending in the Caribbean Court of Justice; and light enough to attach its duties to bodies that already exist. It proposes accession, a short domestic Act, practice directions of the courts and, before all three, commencement of the data-protection statute.
Keywords: artificial intelligence; Council of Europe Framework Convention; EU Artificial Intelligence Act; Guyana; CARICOM; commencement; data protection; legal transplants; Caribbean Court of Justice
Naomi Eglantine Christie · LL.B. (Distinction) · L.E.C. (Honours) · LL.M., New York University, 2015 — International Legal Studies · Attorney-at-Law, admitted to the Bar of Guyana, October 2013, and to the Bar of Grenada, 2014. Correspondence: naomi@christiejustuslaw.com.
© 2026 Naomi Eglantine Christie. This paper may be downloaded, printed and circulated without charge for personal, academic and teaching use, with attribution. It states the law as the author understands it at the date on the cover; it is not legal advice to any person. Pending matters are described as pending.