Recognising the slave trade as a crime against humanity is an essential first step | Letters

Kenneth B Ati-John and Ndine Wa‑Chiuta respond to an article by Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama

The president of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, is right to argue that recognising the transatlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity is an essential step toward justice (It’s time for the UN to formally recognise the transatlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity, 22 March). But recognition alone will not be enough. The real question before the international community is what recognition is meant to achieve.

For decades, Africa and the Caribbean have secured acknowledgments of historical injustice, from the Abuja Proclamation to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. Yet the structural effects of that history remain visible in patterns of development, opportunity and vulnerability across Africa and its diaspora. If this new initiative at the United Nations general assembly is to succeed, it must move beyond symbolic affirmation toward institutional consequences.

Reparatory justice should therefore be understood not simply as compensation for the past but as a framework for restructuring opportunity in the present. Recognition only becomes meaningful when it strengthens the ability of affected societies to negotiate fairer terms within the international system that their labour helped build.

The African Union’s decision to designate 2026 to 2035 as the “decade of action on reparations” signals that Africa is approaching this issue with seriousness and coordination. The next step is to translate that commitment into practical mechanisms: support for the Caribbean Community’s 10-point reparations framework, expanded educational partnerships and development financing arrangements that help correct longstanding structural imbalances.

Handled with discipline and imagination, this initiative could help redefine reparations not as a backward-looking claim, but as a forward-looking project of global fairness.
Rear Adm Kenneth B Ati-John
Lekki, Nigeria