The de­c­la­ra­tion re­leased at the end of the Cari­com Crime Sym­po­sium on Tues­day evening ac­knowl­edges that “the mul­ti-faceted na­ture of vi­o­lent crime and its per­va­sive ef­fects re­quire a ro­bust re­gion­al re­sponse.”

It lays out a plan of ac­tion that in­cludes a ban on as­sault weapons, an over­haul of mem­ber states’ crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tems to “ad­dress crim­i­nal ter­ror­ists,” strength­en­ing of re­gion­al foren­sic ca­pa­bil­i­ties, col­lab­o­ra­tion and the draft­ing of re­gion­al mod­el leg­is­la­tion for greater “har­mon­i­sa­tion and ef­fi­cien­cy to the de­vel­op­ment and re­vi­sion of na­tion­al laws,” among oth­er am­bi­tious ob­jec­tives.

But even be­fore the two-day sym­po­sium con­vened in Port-of-Spain, a fair amount of scep­ti­cal com­ments were float­ing around about the event. Ex­pec­ta­tions were low in many quar­ters that the de­lib­er­a­tions would yield con­crete re­sults in sub­se­quent weeks and months. And these pes­simistic fore­casts were not on­ly com­ing from op­po­si­tion par­ties.

How­ev­er, there is too much at stake for this lat­est at­tempt at a col­lec­tive re­sponse to a re­gion­al chal­lenge to fail.

Now, more than ever in the 65 years of ef­forts to achieve full re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, this war on crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty re­quires strate­gies that gen­uine­ly em­body the Cari­com vi­sion of uni­ty.

There has been much de­bate and analy­sis on the dif­fi­cult path to re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, over­shad­owed by the col­lapse of the British West In­dies Fed­er­a­tion, fol­lowed by the Caribbean Free Trade As­so­ci­a­tion (Carif­ta). These pre­de­ces­sors to the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) were es­tab­lished in the hope that there would be the col­lec­tive will to achieve po­lit­i­cal, so­cial and eco­nom­ic strength in the coun­tries sur­round­ing the Caribbean Sea.

Too of­ten, nar­row and mis­guid­ed con­cepts of na­tion­al­ism have ham­pered re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion ef­forts. This ab­sence of re­al Caribbean uni­ty has left loop­holes for crim­i­nal net­works to ex­ploit, lead­ing to the full-blown re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty cri­sis that prompt­ed this week’s sym­po­sium.

There is now an op­por­tu­ni­ty for Cari­com, as it ap­proach­es its 50th an­niver­sary, to prove its met­tle as the old­est sur­viv­ing in­te­gra­tion move­ment in the de­vel­op­ing world and move be­yond ba­by steps of func­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion and for­eign pol­i­cy co­or­di­na­tion to larg­er, more ur­gent goals.

The usu­al emp­ty talk about re­solv­ing dif­fer­ences in po­lit­i­cal and le­gal sys­tems just won’t do, not when it is so clear how much these dis­par­i­ties and pe­cu­liar­i­ties have hin­dered de­vel­op­ment.

In­stead of harp­ing on past fail­ures, it is time to ral­ly the full strength of Cari­com mem­bers.

The world sees this re­gion as a chain of sep­a­rate tiny is­lands and a few small na­tions in Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca.

But to con­front ex­tra-ter­ri­to­r­i­al threats to Caribbean se­cu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty, the full ca­pac­i­ty of these na­tions. cov­er­ing a to­tal area of 463,000 km² and com­pris­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 18.93 mil­lion peo­ple, must be seen and heard.

This is par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant as the re­gion seeks to en­gage Unit­ed States gun man­u­fac­tur­ers po­lit­i­cal­ly and legal­ly on the newest front in the war on crime.

Transna­tion­al crim­i­nals have seen this re­gion as a porous route through which to trans­port tonnes of il­lic­it drugs and weapons, along with peo­ple bound for lives of servi­tude and ex­ploita­tion.

If this week’s de­lib­er­a­tions don’t lead to the es­tab­lish­ment of a strong Caribbean sys­tem of sur­veil­lance, en­force­ment and de­ter­rence, it will be record­ed as an­oth­er re­gion­al ex­er­cise in fu­til­i­ty.

That’s the last thing Cari­com needs at this stage in its his­to­ry.