The choice before Europe: the law of the strongest or reparative justice?
Liliane Umubyeyi
European nations are starting to pay attention after a landmark UN resolution, but reparations is about more than symbolic remembrance or returning stolen artefacts
Ghana conference calls for formal apology for transatlantic slave trade
In Accra, Europe finally showed up to a conversation it can no longer avoid
For four years, the global movement for reparative justice has been gathering political momentum across Africa and the Caribbean, from Nairobi to Bridgetown, from Accra to Addis Ababa. Yet the very European states whose wealth and global standing were built through slavery, colonial conquest and racialised extraction remained absent. That changed two weeks ago
From 16 to 19 June, I attended an unprecedented gathering convened by the government of Ghana of representatives from 80 countries, multilateral institutions and civil society organisations to define the next chapter of reparative justice, following the landmark United Nations resolution of 25 March recognising the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel enslavement as the gravest crimes against humanity. For the first time, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark were in the room.
There is no doubt that the presence of these four European countries marked a political shift. But their ambitions fell dramatically short of the moment
The next UN general assembly and the wave of elections approaching across Europe will force European governments to make a defining choice: embrace reparative justice as the foundation for dismantling global inequalities and reshaping the international order, or retreat into nationalist agendas where the law of the strongest prevails over the rule of justice
France offered the clearest sign that something may be shifting. In a message delivered by President Emmanuel Macron, Paris acknowledged that it had heard the UN resolution “loud and clear”. It announced the creation, together with Ghana, of an international scientific commission tasked with developing recommendations on possible forms of reparations through historical truth telling
The Netherlands and Germany largely reiterated existing commitments, particularly on the restitution of looted cultural heritage. Denmark was more cautious still, limiting its contribution to support for the restoration of Fort Osu, a site in Accra through which about 100,000 enslaved Africans were trafficked to Danish colonies during the late 17th century. The UK, Portugal and Spain, which also played a significant role in slavery, were absent
However, the Global Reparative Justice Framework adopted in Accralast week is not a call for symbolic remembrance or the return of a handful of stolen artefacts. It is a blueprint for redesigning the international order. It links slavery and colonialism to today’s racial, economic, financial, climatic, technological and political inequalities, arguing that justice requires transforming the very institutions that continue to reproduce them. Europe, by contrast, largely offered memorialisation and heritage restoration.
That explains why Macron’s intervention was met with scepticism well before the conference opened. Although he became the first French president to openly address the issue of reparations, critics noted that France has yet to dismantle the structures that continue to define its neocolonial relationship with Africa, namely the persistent prioritisation of French financial, political and military interests over the rights and aspirations of African peoples
These deep contradictions and the modest gestures from European governments to date reveal a reluctance to fundamentally challenge the status quo
But the international order that secured European political, economic and legal dominance for centuries is steadily eroding. The US is increasingly sidelining Europe, pushing it to the periphery of major global affairs. Whether in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, the genocide in Gaza, or the recent war of aggression carried out by the US and Israel in Iran, Europe has struggled to make its influence felt in a world order increasingly defined by raw power, championed by Trump and Putin
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At the same time, another vision is emerging: an international order grounded in reparative justice. This vision offers Europe a way out of the existential contradiction that has haunted it since the end of the second world war
For decades, Europe has sought to present itself as a champion of human rights, democracy and international law, while refusing to fully acknowledge that much of its wealth, influence and global standing were built upon five centuries of violence, conquest and domination inflicted upon other peoples. That fundamental contradiction can no longer be managed through carefully worded statements and symbolic gestures
As the former French justice minister Christiane Taubira has argued, dialogue on reparations demands sincerity. It demands courage. One can only hope that such courage and sincerity will guide European governments when they return to the UN general assembly in September for the next round of discussions on the global framework for reparative justice
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Liliane Umubyeyi is co-founder and executive director of African Futures Lab
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