Belize is a Central American country, the only country in the region with historical ties to the United Kingdom (having formerly been British Honduras, it retained English as the nation's official language).

[Page 91]Though sparsely populated, it also has one of the fastest-growing populations in the Western hemisphere. A parliamentary democracy modeled after England, Belize's developing economy is powered principally by private enterprise, tourism, and the export of sugar and bananas.

Most Belizean criminal law stems from the 1980 criminal code, which has been amended several times and modified by specific acts. The 1990 Misuse of Drugs Act, for instance, was passed to deal with the rampant growth in the drug trade throughout Central America in the 1980s. For the first time, following the provisions of the ...