Lionel Hurst

Democracy by Diplomacy Lionel Hurst

For more than twenty-five years, the tiny independent island-states of the English-speaking Caribbean have been dispatching diplomats to the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Commonwealth of Nations, and to many capitals including Washington and London. This book recalls the heroic instances when the diplomats from these tiny states succeeded in keeping the USA, the world's lone superpower, true to its democratic creed. The USA is inclined to abandon democratic ideals when other interests are at stake. The Caribbean diplomats have helped to improve US world- and regional-leadership by challenging the US when it was willing to stray; and, they have improved the lives of millions of people in Latin America and the Caribbean by their insistence on democratic ideals at every juncture. The diplomats and leaders from the tiny Caribbean states have utilized the multilateral institutions where they sit at table with the USA to make themselves a moral force for good. How could tiny states possibly compel changes in US foreign policy? A former Ambassador to the UN, the USA and the OAS answers this question in Democracy by Diplomacy.