Islands of Exception: Law, Empire, and Offshore Finance in the Caribbean

In this talk, Prof. Atiles previews his forthcoming book, Islands of Exception, which explores the colonial foundations and imperial design of offshore finance, arguing that tax havens are not anomalies but central to global capitalism. Centering the Caribbean and Puerto Rico, it shows how colonial legality and geopolitical subordination produced zones marked by a logic of inclusive exclusion, where secrecy, corporate power, and tax injustice are normalized. Drawing on Third World Approaches to International Law and Law and Political Economy, the book introduces the colonial state of exception and the corporate citizen as key legal formations of the offshore world.  These conceptual frameworks illuminate how colonial histories shape the legal and financial infrastructures of key Caribbean offshore financial centers, embedding them within imperial legal geographies. It examines how trusts, shell companies, and crypto-assets enable corporations to externalize harm and evade accountability, and how tax reforms, like the OECD’s Pillar II and the UN Tax Convention, often reproduce the colonial logics they claim to challenge. Islands of Exception concludes with a call for abolishing offshore finance and uplifting grassroots movements across the Caribbean that demand transparency, sovereignty, and justice. Ultimately, it offers a critical account of the global forces and conditions that compel us to abolish the paradise.