Latest Commentaries
Thursday 16 July 2026
All of Sir Ronald's commentaries up to July 16, 2026 can be read in the "Commentaries" section of this website. The most recent one is entitled, "Transparency, Sovereignty, and the Challenge of Power".
Few issues test the sovereignty of small states more severely than requests made by powerful friends. How should a country respond when cooperation is expected, but the proposed terms exceed its legal, financial and institutional capacity? That question lies at the centre of the discussions between the United States and several Caribbean governments over Third-Country Nationals (TCNs).
These are persons whom the United States wishes to remove but who are not nationals of the country to which they are being sent. Instead, they are transferred to a third, unrelated country under arrangements negotiated for the purposes of U.S. immigration enforcement.
The terms the United States has been seeking are worth understanding clearly. The original U.S. proposals envisaged a standing, programmatic arrangement under which transfers would occur on a monthly basis. Critical information about individuals was to be provided only "where available." Financial responsibility for the costs of reception, accommodation, healthcare, and eventual return was left unresolved. And persons subject to expedited removal, meaning they may never have had a proper hearing, were included among those eligible for transfer.
These proposals generated understandable concern among Caribbean governments and their peoples. A small island state that accepts persons in these circumstances assumes potentially significant legal responsibilities under international refugee law, obligations relating to stateless persons, and the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning individuals to places where they face persecution or other serious harm. Yet many Caribbean countries simply do not possess the legal infrastructure, administrative systems or financial capacity that larger states can more readily deploy.
See the full text in the commentaries section of this website.