Jessica Byron-Reid

UWI Professor Emerita Jessica Byron-Reid was Director of the University of the West Indies Institute of International Relations in Trinidad and Tobago from 2016 – 2022. She previously lectured at UWI Mona Campus 1994 – 2016 serving as Head of the Department of Government for part of that time. Between 2006 to 2014, she was UWI Coordinator of a tripartite B.Sc/MSc. Programme in Politics and International Cooperation delivered by the University of Bordeaux Sciences Po, the Universite Antilles in Martinique and the UWI Mona. She is Honorary Professor at UWI SALISES 2023 – 2025, and has been Visiting Professor at the Universite Antilles in Guadeloupe and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in San Andres. Between 1990 and 1997 she lectured at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University, The Netherlands.
Before her academic career, Professor Byron-Reid was a Foreign Service Officer with the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis and then with the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, based at the East Caribbean High Commission in London. She has worked with a number of international research consortia and multilateral agencies on regional and global political, economic and social issues. She is currently a member of the Caribbean Policy Consortium, also an affiliate of the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI), coordinated by the UK Overseas Development Institute. She serves on the Alumni Advisory Committee of the Graduate Institute of Geneva, and previously served for four years as Caribbean member of the Committee on International Affairs of the World Council of Churches.
Professor Byron-Reid has published extensively on Caribbean-Latin American international relations and on small states and territories in the global political economy. Recent publications include Lewis P., Gilbert-Roberts T., Byron J. eds. 2022. Caribbean Regional Integration: Uncertainty in a Time of Global Fragmentation. Kingston Jamaica: UWI Press. 370 pp. ISBN 978-976-640-8992; Briguglio L., Byron J., Moncada S., Veenendaal W. eds. 2020 Handbook on Governance in Small States London: Routledge ISBN 978-036-718-3998; Lewis P., Gilbert-Roberts T.A., Byron J. eds. 2018 Pan-Caribbean Integration: Beyond CARICOM London: Routledge ISBN 978-1-138-05671-8; (2023) Byron J., Montoute A., “The Role of Churches in Regional Cooperation and Governance in the Caribbean” in Bruguglio L., Briguglio M., Bunwaree S., Slatter C. eds. Handbook of Civil Society and Social Movements in Small States. London: Routledge ISBN 978-1-032-37714-8; (2022) Byron J. “The Evolving Contours of Citizenship and Sovereignty in the Contemporary Caribbean” in Henke H., Reno F. eds. New Political Culture in the Caribbean. Kingston Jamaica: The University of the West Indies Press ISBN: 978-976-640-875-6, pp. 59 – 97; (2021) Bishop M., Byron J., Corbett J., Veenendaal W. October 01. “Secession, Territorial Integrity and (Non)-Sovereignty: Why do some separatist movements in the Caribbean succeed and others fail?” Ethnopolitics https://doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2021.1975414; (2021) Byron J., Laguardia Martinez J., Montoute A., Niles K. “Impacts of COVID-19 in the Commonwealth Caribbean: key lessons” The Round Table 110:1 pp. 99-119DOI: 10.1080/00358533.2021.1875694;(2019) “Relations with the European Union and the United Kingdom post-BREXIT: Perspectives from the Caribbean” Etudes Caribeennes No. 42 avril 2019 https://journals.openedition.org/etudescaribeennes/14690; Byron J., Laguardia-Martinez J. 2021. “Chapter I. Experience with South-South Cooperation: The Case of Barbados” in Oviedo E. (Coordinator) Evaluating South-South Cooperation in six Latin American and Caribbean Countries: Shared Challenges for Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, (LC/TS.2021/121), Santiago, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), pp. 23 – 54; Byron J., Laguardia-Martinez J. 2021. “Chapter IV. South-South Cooperation: The Case of Jamaica” in Oviedo E. (Coordinator) Evaluating South-South Cooperation in six Latin American and Caribbean Countries: Shared Challenges for Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, (LC/TS.2021/121), Santiago, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), pp. 109 – 138; (2024) Corbett J., Byron J. “Secessionism in Nevis: Why have tensions eased?” Island Studies Journal 19 (1) DOI 10.24043/00/c.85082