Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States

The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS; French: Organisation des États de la Caraïbe orientale, OECO) is an inter-governmental organisation dedicated to economic harmonisation and integration, protection of human and legal rights, and the encouragement of good governance between countries and territories in the Eastern Caribbean. It also performs the role of spreading responsibility and liability in the event of natural disaster.

The administrative body of the OECS is the Commission, which is headquartered in Castries, the capital of Saint Lucia.

OECS operates an economic union within the larger CARICOM economic union. Eight members operate as a currency union - the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, using the Eastern Caribbean dollar.

OECS was created on 18 June 1981, with the Treaty of Basseterre, which was named after the capital city of St. Kitts and Nevis. OECS is the successor of the Leewards Islands' political organisation known as the West Indies Associated States (WISA).

One prominent aspect of OECS economic bloc has been the accelerated pace of trans-national integration among its member states.

The seven protocol members of the OECS, as well as two of the five associate members—Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands—are either full or associate members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and were among the second group of countries that joined the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). Martinique is currently negotiating to become an associate member of the Caribbean Community.

A common OECS Passport was originally planned for 1 January 2003 but its introduction was delayed. At the 38th OECS Authority Meeting in January 2004, the Secretariat was mandated to have the two companies expressing an interest in producing the common passport (De La Rue Identity Systems and the Canadian Banknote Company) make presentations at the next (39th) Authority Meeting. At the 39th Meeting the critical issue of the relationship between the OECS passport and the CARICOM passport was discussed and at the 40th OECS Authority Meeting in November 2004, the OECS Heads of Government agreed to give CARICOM a further 6 months (until May 2005) to introduce a CARICOM Passport. Failure to introduce the CARICOM Passport by that time would have resulted in the OECS moving ahead with its plans to introduce the OECS Passport. As the CARICOM Passport was first introduced in January 2005 (by Suriname) then the idea of the OECS Passport was abandoned. Had the passport been introduced however it would not have been issued to Economic Citizens within the OECS states.

It would also be unknown if the islands under British sovereignty would join the scheme.