Caribbean climate and environmental advocates argue that the region faces a renewed form of imperial domination through militarism, economic coercion, and environmental exploitation, threatening sovereignty and justice.

During a virtual forum on “Fossil Fuels, Finance and the Future of Caribbean Studies: An Unhealthy Conundrum,” advocates underscored that global powers’ actions continue to position the Caribbean as a strategic zone for external control, undermining its status as a sovereign community under international law.

They said this reality has been sharpened by the reassertion of a modernized Monroe Doctrine, articulated most clearly through the Trump Corollary, which openly framed the Caribbean and Latin America as an exclusive zone of the United States’ dominance.

“In doing so, it normalized political interference, economic punishment, and the threat or use of force. These actions violate the principles of sovereign equality and non-intervention found in the United Nations Charter,” Caribbean climate advocate Martin Felix, also a Brooklyn-based community advocate, told Caribbean Life.

According to Grenadian-born Felix, the Trump Corollary reinforced that Caribbean sovereignty is treated as conditional, subordinating the region to US interests and those of the fossil fuel industry, making climate and energy decisions products of structural coercion rather than genuine policy choice.

“Sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and development conditionalities push Caribbean states toward extractive pathways. These pathways deepen climate vulnerability and economic dependency. All of this contradicts international climate agreements that recognize differentiated responsibility and the right to sustainable development for historically exploited regions,” he continued.

Felix said these realities framed the virtual forum, convened by Friends of the Earth Grenada and regional partners.
He said the discussion took place as multilateral climate cooperation eroded. Major emitting states are retreating from their international environmental obligations.
“For Small Island Developing States, this retreat is not abstract,” Felix said. “It means escalating loss and damage, less fiscal space, and rising threats to territorial integrity, cultural survival, and the right to life.”

He said the gathering was in “loving memory” of Dr. Winston D. Thomas and Michael “Nanan” Jones. “Their lives exemplified principled resistance to injustice,” he said.
“Their legacies framed the forum as more than an exchange of ideas,” he said. “It was a demand for accountability grounded in law, history, and moral responsibility.”
Central to the forum’s discussion was the assertion that the ongoing expansion of fossil fuels in the Caribbean, under external pressures, directly violates both climate science and established legal norms, further perpetuating dependency and harm.

“International human rights law, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, affirms the right to health, food, water, and an adequate standard of living,” he said. “Fossil fuel expansion-driven climate destruction threatens these rights directly.”

Felix said participants argued that promoting extraction in climate-vulnerable regions is a kind of structural violence. It may breach international obligations, especially when imposed by external pressure rather than democratic consent.

He said the Caribbean’s long-standing demand to be a zone of peace was reframed. It is now seen as a legal and reparatory claim.
“Peace cannot be limited to the absence of armed conflict,” Felix said. “Under international law, peace must include freedom from economic coercion, environmental harm, and policies that expose populations to foreseeable and preventable catastrophe.

“Environmental peace and justice are thus inseparable from the Caribbean’s right to self-determination,” he added. “A region subjected to toxic extraction, climate devastation, and militarized enforcement cannot be said to enjoy peace in any meaningful legal sense.”
Vincentian-born Sherrill-Ann Mason of Medgar Evers College moderated the event. Felix said the forum placed these arguments within wider Global South justice struggles.

“Mason ensured the discussions of finance and energy kept their focus on power, accountability, and legal responsibility,” he said.

Sherrill-Ann Mason-Haywood, chairperson of the Brooklyn-based SVG Diaspora Committee of NY, Inc., at the Brooklyn-based St. Vincent and the Grenadines Ex-Teachers Association of New York’s gala luncheon in January at Grand Prospect Hall in Brooklyn. Photo by Nelson A. King, file

Felix said speakers provided evidence of how ‘extractivism’—an economic model based on large-scale removal of natural resources for export—operates across the Global South, with consistent patterns of harm and impunity.

Pablo Fajardo Mendoza of Friends of the Earth Ecuador described Chevron’s Amazon operations. “They left communities with poisoned water, destroyed ecosystems, and intergenerational health impacts,” he said.
Such cases, participants noted according to Felix, “show the failure of international laws to hold corporations and their home states accountable. This reinforces the need for binding rules that recognize corporate liability for environmental crimes.”

Felix said Dr. James Hospedales of Trinidad and Tobago called climate change “a global public health emergency” led mainly by industrialized nations.
“He stressed that the disproportionate burden borne by Caribbean populations raises clear questions of reparative justice,” Felix said.

He said World Health Organization projections of rising climate-related deaths show this is not a future risk. “It is a present violation of the right to life.”
Felix said reparations in this context are not just symbolic. They are “needed to fund adaptation, strengthen health systems, and prevent avoidable deaths.”

From an advocacy perspective, Felix said Gillian Cooper of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative emphasized the declining viability of fossil fuels. This strengthens the legal case for halting their expansion.
“As investment falls and projects become stranded assets, continued extraction in vulnerable regions cannot be justified as development,” he said. “Instead, it exposes states to financial and ecological harm while protecting corporate interests.”
Felix said participants argued that rich, high-emitting nations have a legal duty to fund a just transition in the Caribbean. This includes technology transfer, debt relief, and compensation for loss and damage.

Bwengye Rajab Yusuf of Friends of the Earth Uganda highlighted that these patterns show a global system of extractive injustice rooted in colonial histories.
Yusuf Caribbean’s demands for reparations were linked to similar claims in Africa and Latin America, grounded in the recognition that wealth accumulation in the Global North has depended on centuries of resource extraction, labor exploitation, and environmental destruction.

According to Felix, participants argued that climate change is a continuation of this historical injustice. Now, it takes form as atmospheric appropriation and climate harm.
Using Nigeria as a cautionary tale, Yusuf pointed out that, despite its oil resources, the West African country remains one of the world’s poorest, and its people are largely outside the electricity grid.

Alana Malinde S. N. Lancaster of The University of the West Indies gave a legal analysis. She emphasized the need for Caribbean states to assert legal agency, according to Felix.
She argued that de-fossilization must be treated as a right, not a concession. International law gives ways to challenge development models imposed from outside.
Lancaster said that Caribbean losses from climate impacts, measured relative to national income, constitute a compelling basis for reparations claims grounded in principles of equity, liability, and intergenerational justice.

“Audience participation reinforced the urgency of these arguments,” Felix said. “Engagement reflected a growing regional consensus that climate injustice, imperial doctrines, and fossil fuel expansion are violations of both moral and legal norms.”

He said the forum concluded with a renewed commitment from Friends of the Earth organizations to advance climate justice as a reparatory and legal struggle.
Felix summarized the forum’s central message: Caribbean states must not be forced to bear the burden of a climate crisis they did not create, particularly as powerful nations retreat from their responsibilities and reinforce domination, making reparatory and legal action imperative.

Joseph “Professor K” Antoine, president of Friends of the Earth Grenada, renewed the call for Grenadian authorities to honor their pledge to rename the emergency department of the General Hospital after Dr. Winston D. Thomas.

Honoring Dr. Thomas and Michael “Nanan” Jones means moving from remembrance to action, he emphasized.

“It requires asserting Caribbean sovereignty under international law, rejecting imperial coercion, demanding reparations for climate and historical injustices, and insisting on a future shaped by peace, environmental justice, and human dignity over profit,” Antoine said. “Now is the time to transform these convictions into concrete action, ensuring that the Caribbean leads with determination, unity, and a renewed commitment to justice for generations to come.”