Beach Rights in the Boom: Q2 2008 and Access Advocates Against the Current

Briefing

• New access corridor violations documented at Trelawny and St Ann resort openings.
• Tourism ministry deferred enforcement response citing ongoing development negotiations.
• Beach Control Act amendment discussions produced no legislative action in 2008.
• International human rights framework for coastal access rights gained traction with advocates.
• Community protests at specific access blockage points received limited official response.

The spring and summer of 2008 were not, for Jamaica’s beach access advocates, a period of forward progress. The boom was producing new access violations faster than the complaint and enforcement process could address existing ones, and the political conditions that would have been required for the kind of systematic enforcement response that advocates were pressing for did not exist. The tourism ministry’s position — that enforcement action on access corridor requirements at currently operating or recently opened resorts would damage Jamaica’s investment image at a critical moment in the development cycle — was not an irrational assessment of the political economy. It was simply an assessment that placed the short-term investment climate above the long-term public interest in beach access, as the ministry had consistently done throughout the boom years.

The new access corridor violations documented at resort openings in Trelawny and St Ann in the spring of 2008 followed the pattern that had been established at every resort opening in the boom years: the approval documents required a corridor; the corridor had not been provided; the ministry acknowledged the deficiency and initiated a dialogue with the developer about remediation; the dialogue proceeded slowly; the corridor remained absent. The advocates who were documenting these violations were accumulating a detailed record of systematic non-compliance, and they were increasingly focused on building the evidentiary foundation for the enforcement actions and legal challenges they anticipated pursuing when the political conditions became more favourable.

The International Rights Framework

The use of international human rights frameworks to argue for coastal access rights was a strategic development in the access advocacy community in 2008. The argument drew on the recognition in international human rights instruments of rights related to food, livelihood, and cultural practice that could be engaged by the denial of fishing community access to the coast. For communities whose fishing was both an economic livelihood and a cultural practice of long standing, the loss of beach access was not simply a convenience issue but a rights issue that could be framed in international terms. The practical enforceability of international human rights arguments in Jamaica’s domestic legal system was limited, but the framing opened new rhetorical and political possibilities and connected Jamaica’s beach access controversy to a broader international conversation about land rights and coastal communities.

Community Protests

The community protests at specific access blockage points in 2008 were the local expression of frustrations that the formal advocacy process was not adequately addressing. Community members who had used particular beach paths and coastal areas for generations, and who had found those paths fenced or blocked following resort development nearby, were not content to wait for the compliance dialogue between the ministry and the developer to resolve the situation. Their protests were sometimes effective at the local level — a particularly visible and sustained demonstration could produce a temporary restoration of access — but they were not producing the systemic change that would have required action at the policy level rather than the individual dispute level.

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