ABSTRACT
Ad hoc intergovernmental grouping founded in 1990 to defend the interests of small island states and low-lying coastal developing states. Forty-three states (not all of them islands) are members, of which the following are in the Caribbean area: Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St Christopher and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. Observer states in the region are: Netherlands Antilles, and the US Virgin Islands.
