Former Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretary-General, Irwin LaRocque, is to be awarded the highest regional honor, the Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC).
The announcement was made following the Caricom Inter-Sessional Summit on Wednesday night. The Dominican-born LaRocque, who served as secretary-general from 2011-21, is being honored for “his services to the Community.”
The Order of the Caribbean Community is an award given to “Caribbean nationals whose legacy in the economic, political, social and cultural metamorphoses of Caribbean society is phenomenal.”
The award was initiated at the Eighth Conference of Heads of State and Governments of Caricom in 1987 and began bestowal in 1992
Ambassador Irwin LaRocque is the seventh Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community and the 25th recipient of the OCC.
He is the former Assistant Secretary-General for Trade and Economic Integration at the CARICOM Secretariat, a position he assumed in September 2005. Before that, he served, with distinction, at senior management levels in the public service of Dominica for over 18 years.
LaRocque was educated at Queen’s College, the New School for Social Research, and New York University, where he majored in Political Philosophy, Political Economics, and Economics.
According to CARICOM, recipients of the OCC have the following privileges and entitlements:
The award confers the styling of The Honourable upon the recipient and Post-nominals O.C.C. Members of the Order are accorded the privilege of free movement among the Member States of the Community. They are issued with a travel document that is assigned similar status to a diplomatic passport.
They also have the right to reside in and be gainfully employed in any Member State. The right to acquire and dispose of property, as would citizens of Member States, are entitlements granted to Members of the Order.
Others who have gotten the CARICOM award since 1992 include:
- Sir Shridath Ramphal (Guyana – 1992)
- Dr. William Gilbert Demas (Trinidad and Tobago – 1992)
- Michael Manley (Jamaica – 1994)
- Sir Meredith Alister McIntyre (Grenada – 1994)
- Justice P. Telford Georges (Dominica – 1994)
- Dame Nita Barrow (Barbados – 1994)
- Rt. Hon. Vere Cornwall Bird (Antigua and Barbuda – 1998)
- Sir Philip Manderson Sherlock (Jamaica – 1998)
- Arthur Napoleon Raymond Robinson (Trinidad and Tobago – 1998)
- Sir Garfield Sobers (Barbados – 1998)
- Rt. Hon George Cadle Price ( Belize – 2001)
- Dr. Slinger Francisco (Mighty Sparrow – Trinidad – 2001)
- Sir George Alleyne (Barbados – 2001)
- Lloyd Algernon Best ( Trinidad and Tobago – 2002)
- Sir John Melvin Compton (Saint Lucia – 2002)
- Dame Mary Eugenia Charles (Dominica – 2002)
- Brian Lara (Trinidad – 2008)
- Professor Ralston ‘Rex’ Nettleford (Jamaica – 2008)
- Sir W. Arthur Lewis (St Lucia)
- Dr. Nicholas Joseph Orville Liverpool (Dominica – 2008)
- Hon George Lamming (Barbados – 2008)
- Hon Percival Noel James Patterson (Jamaica – 2009)
- Sir Edwin Carrington (Trinidad and Tobago – 2011)
- Hon Kamaluddin Mohammed ( Trinidad and Tobago – 2012)
