The Caribbean Court of Justice bans generative AI from evidence, allows it for drafting, and puts the verification burden on the filer

What the CCJ is, and why that matters here

The Caribbean Court of Justice describes itself as a hybrid: "a municipal court of last resort and an international court vested with original, compulsory and exclusive jurisdiction in respect of the interpretation and application of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas." It was established on 14 February 2001 by the Agreement Establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice.

Those are two different jobs in one building. In its Original Jurisdiction the CCJ interprets the treaty that governs the CARICOM single market, which is the kind of work a trade tribunal does. In its Appellate Jurisdiction it sits as the final court of appeal for those Caribbean states that have adopted it in place of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The practice direction is issued under both sets of rules, Part 18.1 of the Appellate Jurisdiction Rules 2024 and Part 32.1 of the Original Jurisdiction Rules 2024, so it reaches both streams of work.

Note the date it was issued. 14 February 2025 is the CCJ's own anniversary. That is a scheduling observation on our part, not something the document comments on.

This direction governs proceedings before the CCJ. It does not reach the national courts of CARICOM member states, and nothing in the text purports to.

Who it binds, and one group it never names

The opening line lists the audience: the direction "provides guidance on the permissible use of Generative Artificial Intelligence ('GenAI') tools by attorneys, parties, witnesses, self-represented persons, and other court users." Then it fixes the scope: "This Practice Direction applies to all proceedings before the Caribbean Court of Justice".

Part III gives tailored guidance to exactly two of those groups. The first is attorneys and legal practitioners. The second is self-represented persons, who "may use GenAI tools to draft submissions or familiarise themselves with legal principles, but they remain responsible for verifying the accuracy and appropriateness of such outputs." Parties and witnesses are named in the preamble and are caught by the evidence prohibition in Part II, but they get no section of their own.

The direction does not expressly name judges, registry personnel or judicial assistants. We do not infer the full meaning of "other court users" from that omission. Whether the CCJ has issued a separate policy for its own staff was not checked.

Evidence and other court documents

The definitions section carves "Court Documents" to mean material filed or submitted, such as written submissions and reports, and then expressly excludes affidavits, witness statements, material reflecting the evidence or opinion of deponents or witnesses, and material tendered into evidence or used in cross-examination.

General Principle 1 states the prohibition; Principle 3 separately provides for exceptional permission concerning annexures and exhibits: "The use of GenAI is prohibited in the generation of the content of affidavits, witness statements, or any other material intended to reflect the evidence or opinion of a deponent or witness, or other material tendered into evidence or used in cross-examination. Such documents must reflect solely a person's knowledge and must not include artificial intelligence-generated content."

General Principle 2 prohibits GenAI "for the purpose of altering, embellishing, strengthening, diluting or otherwise rephrasing the evidence of a witness or deponent." So you cannot run a witness statement through a model to tighten the prose. That is a broader bar than a naive reading of principle 1 would give you, because polishing is not generating, and principle 2 says polishing is out too.

General Principle 4 states: "The Court does not prohibit the use of GenAI tools for the preparation of Court Documents, provided that users comply with this Practice Direction and any relevant legislation, rules, and ethical obligations." Part III adds that GenAI "may be used to draft submissions, summarise legal arguments, or conduct basic research".

In exceptional circumstances a party may apply for permission to use GenAI in preparing an annexure or exhibit, and the application has to specify five things: a detailed description of the intended use, the programme and version, whether it is closed-source or open-source, whether it has privacy or confidentiality features, and the anticipated advantages. As a drafting note, item (ii) in the published PDF reads "the GenAI programme, system or proposed for use", which appears to be missing a word in the original. We quote it as it stands.

Part IV: verification, disclosure, and a confidentiality rule narrower than it looks

The direction treats verification and disclosure separately.

Verification is unconditional. Part III tells attorneys that outputs "must be thoroughly fact-checked, reviewed for accuracy, and adapted to comply with legal standards and requirements" and that "Citations or references generated by GenAI tools must be independently verified using reliable sources." Part IV paragraph 2 repeats it at the level of every court user: outputs "must be checked against authoritative legal texts, case law, or statutes." It then adds an evidentiary hook. Court users "may be required to demonstrate how such verifications were conducted." Keeping a record of verification steps is a practical way to prepare for that request; the direction does not prescribe a retention period or record format.

Disclosure works differently. Part IV paragraph 3: "The Court may require a user to disclose whether a GenAI tool was employed in the preparation of any document or evidence." That is a discretionary power the Court holds, not a standing certification duty on the filer. Nothing in the direction requires you to tag AI-assisted submissions on the way in. The follow-through is a readiness standard: users "should be prepared to identify specific portions of their submissions influenced by GenAI and explain the steps taken to ensure accuracy."

The text gives the Court a power to require disclosure and asks users to be prepared to explain their use and verification. We do not infer the Court's unstated reasons for choosing that procedure.

Part IV paragraph 1 states: "Court users must not input sensitive, confidential, or privileged information into open source GenAI tools to avoid unintentional disclosure of private and confidential information."

The paragraph expressly names open source tools. The definition and exhibit-permission checklist also refer to closed-source and open-source systems. Those words alone do not establish how the Court would classify a particular service or resolve other confidentiality obligations.

This article does not treat closed-source status as permission to upload confidential or privileged material. The next sentence contains a recommendation: Secure platforms "which adhere to established ethical standards and legal requirements" are recommended for processing private and confidential information. Recommended, not required.

The practical consequence is that a firm relying on this paragraph alone for its policy would be relying on a narrow prohibition plus a soft recommendation. General Principle 6 also refers to professional conduct obligations: attorneys are reminded to independently verify filings and comply with rules of professional conduct.

What non-compliance costs, and what it does not

Part V lists possible consequences under this direction. Non-compliance "may result in" two things: "Costs orders against the offending party" and "Rejection or diminished evidentiary weight of improperly prepared documents or submissions."

There is no contempt provision, no referral to a disciplinary or bar authority, no strike-out power, no fine scale, and no mandatory reporting. We are not saying those consequences are unavailable to the CCJ under its general powers. We are saying this instrument does not specify them, and anyone drafting a client alert should not import the sanctions from the English or US fabricated-citation cases into a summary of this document.

Rejection or diminished evidentiary weight can affect the material available to support a party's case. The direction lists those possible consequences alongside costs orders.

The scope of this review

This review concerns the CCJ direction. We have not established an exhaustive regional inventory or compared every court's AI instrument.

The source does not establish borrowing between courts, comparative docket sizes or which AI direction has the widest reach. Those comparisons are not needed to determine the scope stated here: proceedings before the CCJ.

For a matter before the CCJ, check the applicable direction and any later revisions, including the distinction between witness evidence and other court documents. This article does not determine the requirements of national courts.

What we did not verify

This update read the complete three-page Practice Direction No. 1 of 2025 from ccj.org. Its requirements are distinguished here from our practical suggestions. The institutional description is attributed to the CCJ overview page; it is not a comparative claim about courts.

On the date: the document's own closing line reads "on 14th February 2025" above the signature of Adrian Saunders, President. We are using the instrument's date. The direction takes effect "from the date on which it is issued", so issue and effect are the same day.

What we did NOT open: the CCJ (Appellate Jurisdiction) Rules 2024 and the CCJ (Original Jurisdiction) Rules 2024, so we have not independently confirmed what Part 18.1 and Part 32.1 authorise the President to do beyond the fact that this direction cites them. We did not open the AI practice directions of Jamaica, the Turks and Caicos Islands, The Bahamas, Belize, or Trinidad and Tobago, and nothing above describes their contents. We did not confirm which CARICOM member states have adopted the CCJ's Appellate Jurisdiction, so we have named no country as being under it. We did not check whether the CCJ has issued any separate internal AI policy for judges or registry staff, and we found no revision to this direction, but we did not exhaustively search for one.

What we refuse to claim: that the direction binds any court other than the CCJ; that it imposes a standing duty to disclose AI use on filing, which it does not, because the power to require disclosure sits with the Court; that any sanction beyond costs orders and rejection or diminished evidentiary weight is specified in this text; and that the confidentiality paragraph prohibits inputting privileged material into closed-source tools. That last point is our reading of the words "open source" in Part IV paragraph 1 and it is offered as analysis, not as the Court's position.

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