The Cayman Islands: Paradoxes of Insularity in the Caribbean and Other British Overseas Territories
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The Cayman Islands: Paradoxes of Insularity in the Caribbean and Other British Overseas Territories Michael Bromby1
© © Crown 2020
Abstract The Cayman Islands has a population of 63,415 (Cayman Islands Government) and an area of 264 square kilometres, making it the world’s twentieth smallest nation or territory by geographical area and 35th smallest by population (United Nations Statistics Division). As a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, there exist many connections to other parts of the world that are geographical, legal and sociopolitical; yet the Cayman Islands and other such territories exhibit traits that may be described as insular or openly international. The British Overseas Territories amount to 14 distinct and effectively self-governing territories that are spread across the globe. Indeed, of the 50 remote islands gazetted by Schalansky (Atlas of remote Islands: Fifty Islands I have never set foot on and never will, Penguin Books, London, 2010), 20 of these islands share a heritage with the former British Empire and, for those with a population and operant legal system, they share the basic underpinning of the English common law [Eight are, or have been, part of a British Overseas Territory; 12 are part of a Commonwealth Nation with the UK monarch as the head of state (aside from Banaba Island in Kiribati which is a presidential republic but still a member of the Commonwealth of Nations)]. Whilst geographically remote, the British Overseas Territories share a direct connection with elements of supervisory governance (as did the now independent Commonwealth Nations) still exercisable by the UK’s Government in London, UK. This article will explore the provision of legal education, the diversity of the judiciary and the issues associated with jury size, juror selection and fair, impartial decision making in the Cayman Islands in order to explore the concepts of insularity, internal connectivity and remoteness in law for this particular British Overseas Territory (further references in the text, abbreviated as BOT). Keywords Remoteness · Cayman Islands · Juries · Judicial diversity · Judiciary · Jury composition
* Michael Bromby [email protected] 1
Truman Bodden Law School of the Cayman Islands, George Town, Cayman Islands
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M. Bromby
Imperial Corridors The British Empire created a number of ‘corridors’ in which persons, trade and power travelled in various directions to and from the United Kingdom, principally London, as the legal centre of the empire. These corridors linked the most distant and isolated colonies in a hub and spoke model, occasionally with clusters connecting discrete geographical areas together such as the British West Indies. Figure 1 illustrates the locations of Schalansky’s 50 most remote islands, accompanied by a visual representation of the ’Imperial corridors’ that connect some of them to the UK. The short-lived Federation of the West Indies is a prime example of such clustering of island territories and some connections remain for t
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