four years since the first appeal to the CCJ from Belize in mid 2011. While Guyana originally abolished appeals to the JCPC in 1970, since adopting the CCJ, appeals to that Court have been exponentially increasing. History In the aftermath of the collapse of the Federation of the West Indies (and with it the Federal Supreme Court), which had lasted a mere four years, from 1958 to 1962, the Anglophone continental and insular Caribbean states formed the CARIFTA (the Caribbean Free Trade Association), with a view to maintaining an economic link among the various former and continuing colonies of the United Kingdom after the collapse of the political bond. On 1 August 1973, the successor to the CARIFTA, the Caribbean Community, better known by its acronym, CARICOM, came into being. The founding document of the CARICOM, the Treaty of Chaguaramas, was signed by the so-called "Big Four" states: Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, all of which had gained their political independence from the UK during the 1960s. This signing was the starter's signal for a more mature, though at times slow and halting, process of regional integration among the states of the Commonwealth Caribbean. Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and Agreement establishing the CCJ In 2001, the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community, at their 22nd meeting in Nassau, the Bahamas, signed the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (RTC), rebranding the Caribbean Community and Common Market to include the proposed CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). The single market replacing the original Common Market aspect of the group. Originally an Anglophone club, the admission of Dutch-speaking Suriname in 1995, and Créole-speaking Haiti (where French is the official language) in 2002 has somewhat modified the cultural and jurisprudential mix of the community. Under the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, and typical of similar international integrationist movements, the CARICOM has restructured itself to include such elements as are characteristic of the modern democratic state, viz., executive (CARICOM Heads of Government and the Community Council), legislative (Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians – established before the revised treaty and now moribund) and judicial (CCJ) arms. The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is the Caribbean regional judicial tribunal established on 14 February 2001, by the Agreement Establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice. The agreement was signed on that date by the CARICOM states of: Antigua and Barbuda; Barbados; Belize; Grenada; Guyana; Jamaica; Saint