In Ghana, preparations are underway for a high-level conference focused on advancing Africa’s call for reparatory justice after the United Nations adopted a landmark resolution describing the trafficking of enslaved Africans as one of the most serious crimes against humanity.
Leaders, government officials, civil society actors, historians, academics and legal experts from over 80 countries are gathering in Accra, Ghana’s capital, for a three-day conference titled Next Steps, beginning Wednesday. The meeting marks the first significant global engagement on the issue since the adoption of the United Nations resolution.
As part of the programme, a commemorative event is scheduled for 19 June at Osu Castle in Accra, a 17th-century Danish-built fortress that once played a central role in the transatlantic slave trade. The event is intended to mark Juneteenth, the day that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States.
The list of expected speakers features African Union Commission Chair Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, and several heads of state, including John Mahama, Joseph Boakai, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, and Emmanuel Macron, representing Ghana, Liberia, Namibia, Senegal, and France, respectively.
Delegates are taking part in discussions focused on five main objectives, which include setting up a framework to drive the global implementation of the resolution’s goals and creating international panels on reparatory justice and restitution. Organisers say the intention is to turn growing political momentum into a shared and concrete institutional commitment to reparatory justice.
Nearly three months after the United Nations General Assembly adopted a Ghana-backed proposal on behalf of African Union member states, a conference is now being convened to build on that decision. The resolution formally recognises the trafficking of enslaved Africans and the system of racialised chattel slavery as some of the most serious crimes against humanity.
The proposal received support from 123 countries, while three—including the United States, Israel, and Argentina—voted against it. A further 52 nations, including the United Kingdom and all European Union members, abstained.
The transatlantic slave trade lasted for approximately 400 years, stretching from the early 16th century through to the late 19th century.
Earlier efforts by African countries to address long-standing historical injustices, including the forced enslavement of their people, were often carried out in a fragmented manner. The resolution is seen as a turning point for the continent’s push for reparatory justice, building on earlier milestones such as the 1993 Abuja Proclamation, which called for reparations for colonial rule and the transatlantic slave trade and helped establish the foundation for the broader campaign.
Ghana says in its concept note for the conference: “This [resolution] represents a fundamental departure from the international community’s response to the transatlantic slave trade, replacing commemorative gestures with the pursuit of historical truth and dialogue, aimed at reconciliation and justice.”
The resolution recognises that the impact of enslavement is still felt today and encourages UN member states to take part in “inclusive, good-faith dialogue” on reparatory justice. It also calls for the “prompt and unhindered” return of cultural artefacts and other items of significance to their countries of origin.
The Accra conference aims to build on the progress made at the UN by exploring practical ways to translate the resolution into concrete and implementable commitments.
Recent developments linked to the decision have been felt beyond the UN process. In France, President Emmanuel Macron has urged a national reflection on the country’s involvement in the enslavement of Africans, notably employing the term “reparations,” which earlier French leaders had avoided. Meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV delivered an unusual apology acknowledging the Vatican’s role in supporting slavery in the past and its delayed condemnation of it.
The Head of Programmes at the Economic, Social and Cultural Council, the African Union’s civil society policy organ, Kyeretwie Osei, said the global conversation on reparatory justice is gaining strong momentum and is currently at its most promising stage. He added that the conference presents an opportunity “to leverage this particular moment”.
“There is this slow but really substantive movement towards some sort of global reckoning on this issue,” he said. “This conference is really going to allow Africa to ensure that it has the structures that would be necessary [and] the political will that we’ve seen to be properly leveraged and channelled to ensure that we are able to best give practical meaning to this particular point in time.”
The conference also includes participation from partners beyond Africa, such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the Caricom Reparations Commission, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Co-founder and executive director of African Futures Lab, Liliane Umubyeyi, a nonprofit focused on raising awareness of racial injustices, said the event provides an opportunity for the reparative justice movement to grow into a wider coalition that includes countries outside Africa and the Caribbean, where reparations advocacy is also increasingly gaining support.
“This would significantly accelerate the reparations agenda, especially if other international institutions that have previously been hesitant to engage with the issue begin to do so,” she added.
