By James Amoh Junior
Accra, Aug. 31, GNA – Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Foreign Affairs Minister, says a UN recommendation has strengthened the legal basis for reparatory justice for the transatlantic enslavement of Africans.
He said the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) had affirmed that States had obligations to address the continuing consequences of the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel slavery.
“Ghana hails the groundbreaking report of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination which concludes unambiguously that perpetrators of the transatlantic enslavement must provide reparatory justice,” he said in a statement.
The CERD General Recommendation No. 40, adopted during the Committee’s 118th session held from August 10 to 25, 2026, provides guidance on the legal basis for State responsibility for harms resulting from direct and indirect involvement in the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel slavery.
Mr Ablakwa said the recommendation represented a significant development in Ghana’s efforts to advance the reparations agenda at the international level.
He said it was instructive that the recommendation had been issued as President John Dramani Mahama presented a comprehensive report at an African Union extraordinary meeting in Angola on the landmark Ghana-led United Nations resolution declaring the transatlantic enslavement among the gravest crimes against humanity.
The Minister said President Mahama, following the Next Steps Summit in Accra, was also set to host a side event on restitution in New York during the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly next month.
He said Ghana’s campaign was driven by the conviction that historical crimes did not lose their significance or consequences merely because time had passed.
“A crime does not rot. It was in this spirit that Ghana carried the cause of the enslaved to the United Nations. Today that conviction stands affirmed in international law,” he said.
CERD said the elimination of racial discrimination could not be effective, thorough or lasting without a full commitment to examining and redressing the harms and continuing consequences of the trafficking in enslaved Africans and racialised chattel slavery.
It noted that millions of Africans were forcibly captured and transported across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans between the 15th and 19th centuries.
The Committee said the most recent estimates indicated that about 15.4 million people were uprooted, of whom only about 10.7 million survived the journey, while countless others died through murder, violence, exploitation, suicide or disease.
It described the trafficking as the largest forced deportation in history, saying it inflicted lasting harm on Africa, destabilised societies, entrenched economic dependency and destroyed cultures.
Mr Ablakwa said the recommendation had also weakened arguments previously advanced against reparations.
“The long-used excuse, that these crimes were lawful when they were committed, no longer holds. The Committee itself calls this a paradigm shift,” he said.
CERD acknowledged that some States had argued that claims for reparatory justice should be barred because explicit international treaty prohibitions against slavery emerged later.
However, the Committee said States remained bound by their present obligations under the Convention to eliminate contemporary racial discrimination and address structural inequalities and other continuing consequences linked to colonialism, the trafficking in enslaved Africans and racialised chattel slavery.
It also stressed that the prohibition of racial discrimination and slavery had evolved into peremptory norms of international law and that States should take appropriate action, including reparatory measures, to address the persistence of systemic racism and its roots in historical slavery.
Mr Ablakwa said the recommendation strengthened the legal foundation of Ghana’s position on reparatory justice.
“Recognition is becoming obligation. Apology, restitution, compensation and guarantees of non-repetition are no longer matters of goodwill, but of duty,” he said.
The Committee called on States Parties to implement comprehensive reparatory measures combining monetary, non-monetary and structural interventions.
It said reparatory justice should include restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition, while seeking to dismantle race-based hierarchies and structural inequalities.
The recommendation also called for the meaningful participation of people of African descent in designing and implementing reparatory measures.
It urged States to disclose the full truth about the transatlantic slave trade, preserve and open relevant archives, establish truth-seeking mechanisms and address material and social inequalities arising from the enduring legacies of slavery.
CERD further called for accountability from non-State actors, including businesses, banks, insurers, universities and religious organisations that participated in, facilitated or benefited from slavery and related colonial practices.
Such institutions, it said, should acknowledge their historical roles, open their archives and contribute to reparatory measures commensurate with their involvement and benefits obtained.
Mr Ablakwa said Ghana would continue pursuing the reparations agenda under the leadership of President Mahama, the African Union Champion for Reparations.
“Under the visionary leadership of President John Dramani Mahama, African Union Champion for Reparations, and in unity with our kith and kin across the African Union, CARICOM and the diaspora, our just cause advances.
“The blood that binds us is stronger than the oceans that appeared to separate us,” he said.
The Minister said the UN report had reinforced growing international recognition that the consequences of slavery remained a contemporary challenge requiring concrete action.
“Justice does not expire with time,” he said.
GNA
Reporter: James Amoh Junior
Email: [email protected]
Edited by Kenneth Sackey