Country-wide policy
Guyana hosts the CARICOM Secretariat, and its statute book says remarkably little about it
Georgetown is the seat of the Caribbean Community Secretariat, and a reader might expect that to show in Guyanese law as a headquarters agreement, a privileges and immunities regime for Secretariat staff, or a special status for Community nationals. It shows in two places and neither is about the headquarters. The Caribbean Community Act 2006 gives the Revised Treaty the force of law in Guyana and provides that where it conflicts with any other law except the Constitution it prevails - a stronger incorporation than most members enacted. And a 1982 Order under the Privileges and Immunities Act declares the Community and the Common Market to be organisations to which section 13 of that Act applies and gives them the legal capacities of a body corporate. That Order was made under the original 1973 Treaty, confers none of the Fifth Schedule privileges on officers or staff on its face, and has not been replaced. We found no headquarters agreement in the Laws of Guyana, and no provision anywhere that treats a Community national differently because the Secretariat is here.
Topics it changes
What it requires
- Do not assume that hosting the Secretariat gives a Community national any additional right in Guyana: no instrument we read does so
- For a Secretariat officer, the status to look for is an order under section 13 of the Privileges and Immunities Act, and the only one on the statute book dates from 1982
At a glance
- Seat of the Caribbean Community Secretariat
- Georgetown, Guyana
- Headquarters agreement in the Laws of Guyana
- None found
- Status of the Revised Treaty in Guyanese law
- It has the force of law, and prevails over any other law except the Constitution
- Privileges and immunities instrument
- Privileges and Immunities (the Caribbean Community and the Caribbean Common Market) Order 1982, O. 59/1982
O. 59/1982 is the Order's citation in the Chapter's index of subsidiary legislation, not a quantity.
- Treaty that Order was made under
- The Treaty done at Chaguaramas on 4 July 1973, not the Revised Treaty of 2001
Both are dates of treaties, taken from clause 2 of the Order and from section 2 of the Caribbean Community Act.
- What that Order confers on its face
- Specification as a section 13 organisation, and the legal capacities of a body corporate
13 is the section of the Privileges and Immunities Act quoted below, not a quantity.
- Additional right for a Community national because the Secretariat is here
- None found
The Caribbean Community Act mentions the Secretariat once, at section 6(2), quoted here, and that is a rule of evidence. The 1982 Order confers legal capacities on the Community and the Common Market and nothing on their nationals.
What hosting shows up as, and what it does not
Guyana's answer to this question is more interesting than either a yes or a no. On the one hand it has the strongest incorporation of the Revised Treaty of any country in this comparison: section 3 of the Caribbean Community Act gives the Treaty the force of law and section 8 makes the Act prevail over every other law except the Constitution, which is a supremacy clause that few members of a regional organisation grant. On the other hand the statute book contains nothing about the headquarters itself. There is no Caribbean Community (Headquarters) Act, no agreement scheduled to an Act, and no instrument naming Georgetown. The Secretariat appears once, in section 6(2) of the Caribbean Community Act, as the custodian of documents whose certified copies are admissible in evidence.
A 1982 Order under a Treaty that has been replaced
The privileges and immunities of the Community in Guyana rest on O. 59/1982, made under section 13 of the Privileges and Immunities (Diplomatic, Consular and International Organisations) Act. It has two operative clauses: one specifying the Community and the Common Market as organisations to which section 13 applies, and one giving them the legal capacities of a body corporate. Section 13 of the parent Act would let the Minister go much further - the Fifth Schedule carries immunity from suit and legal process, inviolability of premises and archives, and exemptions for representatives and senior officers - and nothing in the Order as printed does so. The Order also defines the Treaty as the 1973 Chaguaramas Treaty, which the Revised Treaty replaced in 2001 and which the Caribbean Community Act of 2006 does not mention. The Order has not been remade.
And nothing for Community nationals
The practical question for a reader is whether being in the country where the Secretariat sits buys a Community national anything. It does not. Every right a Community national has in Guyana comes from Chapter 18:08 or Chapter 18:10 and from section 12(7A) of the Immigration Act, and all of them are reciprocal obligations Guyana owes as a member rather than as a host. Chapter 18:08 in fact caps those rights by reciprocity: section 13 says the rights conferred on a qualifying State's passport holder shall not exceed that State's reciprocal rights and privileges. Hosting the Secretariat is, in Guyanese law, an administrative fact.
What the law says
«3. (1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Treaty
force of law.
shall have the force of law in Guyana.
(2) The Community shall have the full juridical
personality.»The words set off on their own lines inside this quotation are the section's marginal note and the amending-Act references, which the publisher prints down the left-hand edge of the page; the extraction places them inline. Act 8 of 2006, bearing 1 January 2006 on its face.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«8. (1) In the event of any inconsistency between the
with other law
provisions of this Act and the operation of any other law
other than the Constitution, the provisions of this Act shall
prevail to the extent of the inconsistency.»The words set off on their own lines inside this quotation are the section's marginal note and the amending-Act references, which the publisher prints down the left-hand edge of the page; the extraction places them inline.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Evidence of any instrument issued by an
organ of the Community or of any document in the custody
of the Secretariat of the Community, or any entry in or
extract from such a document, may be given in any legal
proceedings by production of a copy certified as a true copy
by the Secretary General of the Community.»The only provision in the Act that mentions the Secretariat at all, and it is an evidential rule rather than anything to do with hosting it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«3. The Community and the Common Market are
Community hereby declared to be organizations of which Guyana and
and the
Common
other sovereign Powers are members and are hereby specified
Market to be as organizations to which section 13 of the Act applies.»The words set off on their own lines inside this quotation are the section's marginal note and the amending-Act references, which the publisher prints down the left-hand edge of the page; the extraction places them inline. Clause 2 defines the Treaty as "the Treaty done at Chaguaramas on 4th July 1973 establishing the Community and Common Market". The Order has not been remade under the Revised Treaty.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«4. The Community and the Common Market shall
Community have the legal capacities of a body corporate.»The words set off on their own lines inside this quotation are the section's marginal note and the amending-Act references, which the publisher prints down the left-hand edge of the page; the extraction places them inline. The Order as printed contains nothing else. Section 13(2)(b) to (d) of the parent Act would let the Minister confer the Fifth Schedule privileges and immunities on the organisation, on representatives and on officers; this Order does not do so on its face.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«13. (1) This section applies to any organisation
immunities of
declared by the Minister, by order, to be an organisation of
specified
organisations. which—»The words set off on their own lines inside this quotation are the section's marginal note and the amending-Act references, which the publisher prints down the left-hand edge of the page; the extraction places them inline.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The Caribbean Community Act's arrangement of sections lists a Schedule. No Schedule is printed in the Chapter, which ends at page 7 of 7 after section 8. We flag this as a gap in the publication rather than in the extraction: pdftotext does not drop pages, and the authorised page range on the title page is 1 to 7.
We looked for a headquarters agreement in the index of subsidiary legislation to Chapter 18:01 and in the chapter list of the whole Laws of Guyana. The subsidiary legislation to Chapter 18:01 consists of five items: orders for the People's Republic of China, the International Court of Justice, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Caribbean Community and Common Market, and a 1972 notice about a conference of non-aligned foreign ministers. There is no sixth.
This record rests on the whole of the Caribbean Community Act, Chapter 18:06, and on Chapter 18:01 including its five items of subsidiary legislation, both in the 2012 revised edition.