Biography

Dr. Rose has published in a variety of areas including taxation, e-commerce and medical law, as well as diagnostic radiology. Following a career in the private sector, he served as Executive Director of the Cayman Islands Government’s Portfolio of Finance and Economics Secretariat between 2000 and 2004, as the first Chairman of the Cayman Islands Information Communication Technology Authority from 2002 to 2004, as Director of International Tax Policy from 2004 to 2006 and as a member of the Board of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority from 2006 to 2009. Dr. Christopher Rose qualified as a barrister (England and Wales), and also as a Chartered Financial Analyst, a physician and a radiologist. He earned an M.A. and a D.Phil. in law from the University of Oxford as well as undergraduate and graduate medical degrees from McMaster University. He completed his post-graduate medical training at the University of Oxford.

Article Title

Looking Back To Examine the Future

Abstract

What might a 50 year retrospective and a 50 year prospective undertaken in the year 1712 rather than 2012 have produced, and what might that product lend to the current proceedings?

This paper adopts two linked hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that the past is a poor predictor of the future of small geographically isolated societies, save to the extent that it highlights the complexities and the uncertainties produced by matters beyond prediction and beyond the local geographic space. The second is that an examination of the effects of selected externalities in the history of the Cayman Islands will support the hypothesis that for the Cayman Islands and other small countries in the West Indies, matters beyond prediction have a propensity to shape events beyond any scope for informed long term domestic political prognostications. To the extent that these hypotheses are correct, then the utility of any selected political path is at least as dependent on each country’s susceptibility and vulnerability to external events, including global phenomena ranging from wind patterns to trade, fashion and finance patterns, as it is on any internal political decisions.

This paper further suggests that profound uncertainties have existed throughout the recorded history of the Cayman Islands and that questions of political structure, governance, sovereignty and independence in relation to the Cayman Islands and other small geographically isolated countries, should be viewed from a perspective which includes a focus on relevant regional and global economic and security considerations.