The UN recognizes the African slave trade as the most serious crime against humanity in history.
On March 25, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) approved the Declaration on the Classification of the Traffic in Enslaved Africans and the Racialized Slavery of Africans as the most serious crime against humanity ever committed. The initiative, presented by a coalition of 60 countries from the global south led by Ghana, obtained 123 votes in favor, 52 abstentions and three votes against. The approval date is also loaded with symbolism. In 2007, the UN designated March 25, through resolution 62/122, as the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Although there are many documents that have been approved within the UN and other international organizations with references to the slave trade, this constitutes the first text dedicated entirely to the issue. The declaration highlights four central aspects. Firstly, the condemnation of the slave trade and its classification as the most serious crime against humanity due to “its magnitude, duration, systemic nature, brutality and lasting consequences”, as stated in the declaration. Secondly, the need for restorative justice that goes beyond economic aspects, as it includes apologies, guarantees of non-repetition and the restitution of cultural property. Third, the recognition of the “widespread nature of the trade in enslaved Africans,” that is, the differential impacts it had on African women and girls. And, fourthly, the survival of the consequences of trafficking in current global dynamics and in African and Afro-descendant populations, especially through “structural racism, racial inequalities, underdevelopment, marginalization and socioeconomic disparities.”
Between abstention and rejection
The text had only three votes against: the United States, Israel and Argentina. Ambassador Dan Negrea, US representative to the United Nations, assured in his speech that, although his country condemns the historical grievances of the slave trade, his vote against is justified by the non-recognition of the “legal right to receive reparations for historical grievances that were not illegal under international law at the time they occurred”, something that Gerald Horne, a professor at the University of Houston, interviewed by DW, disagrees with, who argued that “the principle of US law establishes that, when commits an injustice, there must be reparation. Injustice was the slavery of millions of people. “Reparation is compensation.” Negrea added in his speech that the rejection of the text of the declaration was also justified in his opposition to the “attempt of the resolution to establish a hierarchy between crimes against humanity”, given that they consider that it is not a competition and is incorrect from a legal point of view.
Gabriella Michaelidou, representative of Cyprus and in charge of speaking on behalf of the European Union (EU), whose members account for the majority of the 52 abstentions, accompanied by the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada and Switzerland, spoke along the same lines. In his speech, Michaelidou stated that the text raised a “series of legal and factual issues that we cannot ignore”, such as the lack of legal precision due to the use of superlative terms – in reference to the use of “more serious” – or the inclusion of references to regional historical jurisprudence and the supposed selective interpretation of historical events – due to the mention, among others, of papal bulls Dum Various and Romanus Pontifex, to the Portuguese document Indian piece or the Black Seat Spanish-. The European representative went so far as to affirm that “the role of the General Assembly is not to replace academic debate among historians” and that the legal statements, in the opinion of the European members, are inaccurate or incompatible with international law, especially in relation to the claim for reparations.
Faced with the EU’s response, Professor Horne was disappointed, stating that “the height of cynicism is the vote of countries like the United Kingdom, Portugal and Spain, whose current standard of living, in today’s modernity, is directly linked to the unlimited African slave trade.”
The survival of the consequences
John Dramani Mahama, president of Ghana, wrote a column in Guardian a few days before the vote. In it, the Ghanaian politician and historian argued that “Africa brings to this debate a perspective forged by its own intellectual and moral traditions, according to which injustice does not simply disappear with the passage of time, but requires a deliberate effort to address and remedy it. This perspective is consistent with general principles of international law and human rights, which affirm that certain grievances demand lasting accountability. His words thus anticipated some of the arguments that, a few days later, were put forward by those countries that abstained or voted against.
Many other politicians and diplomats agree with Mahama’s argument. Five years ago, the Turkish Volkan Bozkir, president of the UN General Assembly between 2020 and 2021, stated that “this trauma is hereditary. “The descendants of the 15 million victims of the transatlantic slave trade not only have to deal with the pain and grief of their ancestors, but every day they navigate a world built by them, but not for them.”
The question is whether the declaration approved by the United Nations last March can lead to significant reparations. Ndubuisi Christian Ani, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, says that “for reparations to be lasting, it is necessary to address the internalized racism and deeply rooted inferiority complex that slavery and colonialism generated.”
The debate, political and economic, has also had derivatives in the arts, including literature. The Ghanaian writer Yaa Gyasi masterfully captured 400 years of slavery in the novel go back home (Salamandra, 2017): «Before leaving, the man they called “governor” looked at her and smiled. It was a kind gesture, pitiful but sincere. However, for the rest of her life, every time Esi saw a smile on a white face, she remembered the soldier’s face before he took her to his room. “It came to mind that the smile of a white man meant that the next wave would bring greater evils.”
