POLICY BRIEF

Safeguarding Caribbean Culture and Sovereignty in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

This brief proposes a three-pillared Accelerated Execution Roadmap to move the Community from a "standards-taker" to a "sovereign actor" by 2027.

This policy brief by Dr. Abiola Inniss, Head Policy Planner of the Inniss Institute for Digital Policy and Intellectual Property, makes the case for urgent CARICOM action to protect Caribbean cultural sovereignty in the age of artificial intelligence. Drawing on the concepts of data nullius and the digital plantation, the brief documents how Caribbean music, dialects, folklore, and cultural memory are being extracted by foreign AI systems without consent, compensation, or oversight. It introduces the Execution Gap — the widening space between CARICOM's policy aspirations and its operational capacity to act — and presents a five-point framework for closing it. Prepared for CARICOM Heads of Government and Ministers of ICT, Culture, Legal Affairs, and Foreign Affairs, the brief is grounded in data from UNCTAD, ECLAC, UNESCO, and the Caribbean Development Bank.