UN designates African slave trade as ‘gravest crime against humanity’
An 1853 illustration depicting slaves and slave traders on the coast of Africa.
Photo: Chicago History Museum via Getty Images The UN General Assembly on Wednesday designated the transatlantic African slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity”, despite opposition by the United States and some European countries.
In a move advocates hailed as a step towards healing and possible reparations, the resolution was adopted to applause by a vote of 123 in favour, three against and 52 abstentions.
The US, Israel and Argentina opposed the measure, while Britain and EU member states abstained.
Ghana’s President John Mahama, one of the African Union’s most vocal supporters of slavery reparations, was at the United Nations headquarters in New York to support the vote.
An 1853 illustration depicting slaves and slave traders on the coast of Africa.
Photo: Chicago History Museum via Getty Images “Today, we come together in solemn solidarity to affirm truth and pursue a route to healing and reparative justice.
The adoption of this resolution serves as a safeguard against forgetting,” said Mahama.
Despite being non-binding, the resolution goes beyond simple acknowledgement and asks nations involved in the slave trade to engage in restorative justice.
It also highlights the legacy of slavery via “the persistence of racial discrimination and neocolonialism” in today’s society. “The transatlantic slave trade was a crime against humanity that struck at the core of personhood, broke up families, and devastated communities,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said. “To justify the unjustifiable, slavery’s proponents and beneficiaries constructed a racist ideology - turning prejudice into a pseudoscience.” The US called the text “highly problematic”. “The United States also does not recognise a legal right to reparations for historical wrongs that were not illegal under international law at the time they occurred,” said US ambassador Dan Negrea. “The United States also strongly objects to the resolution’s attempt to rank crimes against humanity in any type of hierarchy,” he added.
Britain and EU countries advanced similar arguments while acknowledging the wrongs of slavery.
The resolution “risks pitting historical tragedies against each other that should not be compared, except at the expense of the memory of the victims,” said French representative Sylvain Fournel.
Ghanaian Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa on Tuesday dismissed criticism that the te
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