Caribbean and Africa join forces in historic reparations bid

The Commonwealth Secretary-General has expressed confidence that member states will advance formal discussions on slavery reparations, as CARICOM and the African Union unite to push for the transatlantic slave trade to be declared the greatest crime against humanity at the United Nations.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Shirley Botchwey has expressed confidence that member states will make progress toward formal reparations discussions, noting that reparatory justice could encompass economic partnerships, development initiatives, and symbolic acknowledgements beyond direct financial compensation. CARICOM representatives are holding talks with British officials on reparations for slavery and colonialism. Simultaneously, CARICOM and the African Union are advancing a UN Resolution to declare the transatlantic slave trade the greatest crime against humanity, set for presentation on March 25. The Africa-CARICOM summit in Addis Ababa united African and Caribbean nations in jointly pursuing reparations. African and Caribbean leaders have declared the pursuit of reparations an agenda for the decade.

The convergence of Commonwealth-level dialogue, CARICOM-UK bilateral talks, and the Africa-CARICOM alliance at the United Nations represents the most coordinated push for reparatory justice in history. For Caribbean nations, whose economies and societies still bear the structural scars of plantation slavery, formal acknowledgement and redress could reshape development trajectories and diplomatic relationships with former colonial powers.

"When Britain abolished slavery in 1833, reparations were paid to former slave owners — equivalent to 40 percent of Britain's annual Treasury revenue — while formerly enslaved people received nothing and remained unable to accumulate wealth."

— Dr Alan Lester, Commonwealth Journalists' Association Lecture

Reparatory justice is a moral and economic imperative: Dr Lester argued that Britain's role in abolition does not cancel its reparative debt, noting that anti-slavery rhetoric was reconciled with continued exploitation of colonial labour and resources. He stressed that formerly enslaved people received no capital upon emancipation, entrenching inequality that persists to this day.

Reparations discussions should be broader than the transatlantic trade: Plaut argued that African enslavement was far more extensive than the transatlantic trade alone, citing the Arab slave trade and indigenous African slavery such as the Sokoto caliphate. He said the priority should be people enslaved today and questioned whose reparatory justice, for whom, by whom, and where.

Engagement on reparations offers diplomatic benefits for the West: Shell argued in WPR that serious engagement with reparations could earn trust from developing nations and help counter the rise of authoritarianism, offering strategic diplomatic benefits even as calls for reparations have historically been met with minimal buy-in from former colonial powers.

"When it is presented on the 25th of March, that consequential and defining day, nobody can contest the facts contained in that resolution."

— Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana's Minister of Foreign Affairs, via Caribbean and Africa unite to push for transatlantic slave trade to be declared 'the greatest crime against humanity'

From Addis Ababa to Antigua, the Caribbean reparations movement has never carried more weight. CARICOM and the African Union are presenting a joint UN Resolution on March 25, the Commonwealth Secretary-General is actively fostering dialogue, and formal CARICOM-UK talks are under way. The facts remain unanswerable: over 3.1 million Africans transported on British ships, slave owners compensated with 40 percent of Treasury revenue at abolition, and the enslaved left with nothing. The 2026 CHOGM in Antigua gives Caribbean leaders a defining stage. They must arrive with a unified strategy anchored in the CARICOM 10-point plan — pressing for debt cancellation, development investment, and the return of cultural heritage. Reparatory justice was never about cheques; it is about structural redress for structural harm. The Caribbean and Africa have declared this an agenda for the decade. The region must lead it with precision.