Netherlands In December 2022, the prime minister of the Netherlands,
Mark Rutte,
apologised on behalf of the
Dutch Government for its role in slavery at an event at the
National Archives in
The Hague, which included representatives of various advocacy organisations. It also pledged to give €200 million towards "raising awareness, fostering engagement and addressing the present-day effects of slavery", and is planning a commemoration of the history of slavery on 1 July 2023, along with
Dutch Caribbean nations,
Suriname, and other countries.
United Kingdom By the 2010s examples of international reparations for slavery consisted of recognition of the injustice of slavery and apologies for involvement but no material compensation. In June 2023, the
Brattle Group presented a report at an event at the
University of the West Indies in which reparations were estimated, for harms both during and after the period of transatlantic
chattel slavery at more than 100 trillion dollars. In October 2023, the UK Reparations Conference was held and a joint declaration issued to the effect that full reparatory justice must be "pursued and achieved".
Slave owners' compensation (1837) The
Slave Compensation Act 1837 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, signed into law on 23 December 1837, to bring about
compensated emancipation. Enslavers were paid approximately £20 million in compensation in over 40,000 awards for enslaved people freed in the colonies of the
Caribbean,
Mauritius and the
Cape of Good Hope. This represented around 40 percent of the
British Treasury's annual spending budget and has been calculated as equivalent to about £16.5bn in today's terms. The Act, formally 1 and 2 Vict. 3, was the world's major statute of "compensated emancipation". It empowered the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Dept to raise the £20 million by issuing government stocks, effective borrowing against future tax revenues to pay former enslaves for the "loss of their property."
Abuja Proclamation and ARM (1993) The Africa Reparations Movement, also known as ARM (UK), was formed in 1993 following the Abuja Proclamation declared at the First Pan-African Conference on Reparations in
Abuja, Nigeria, in the same year. The conference was convened by the
Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the
Nigerian government. In early 1993, British MP
Bernie Grant toured the country speaking about the need for reparations for slavery. On 10 May 1993 he tabled a motion in the
House of Commons that, the House welcomes the proclamation and recognised that the proclamation "calls upon the international community to recognise that the unprecedented moral debt owed to African people has yet to be paid, and urges all those countries who were enriched by enslavement and colonisation to review the case for reparations to be paid to Africa and to Africans in the Diaspora; acknowledges the continuing painful economic and personal consequences of the exploitation of Africa and Africans in the Diaspora and the
racism it has generated; and supports the OAU as it intensifies its efforts to pursue the cause of reparations". The motion was sponsored by
Bernie Grant,
Tony Benn,
Tony Banks,
John Austin-Walker,
Harry Barnes, and
Gerry Bermingham. An additional 46
Labour Party MPs signed to support the motion, including future
leader of the opposition,
Jeremy Corbyn. The Abuja Proclamation called for national reparations committees to be set up throughout Africa and the
diaspora.
Bernie Grant formed ARM UK in December 1993 as the co-founder and chairperson, with a core group including: secretary Sam Walker; treasurer
Linda Bellos and trustees Patrick Wilmott, Stephen A. Small (a British academic specialising in slavery), and Hugh Oxley. • to use all lawful means to obtain reparations for the enslavement and colonisation of African people in Africa and in the
African diaspora • to use all lawful means to secure the return of African
artefacts from whichever place they are currently held • to seek an apology from western governments for the enslavement and colonisation of African people • to campaign for an acknowledgement of the contribution of African people to world history and civilisation • to campaign for an accurate portrayal of African history and thus restore dignity and self-respect to African people • to educate and inform African youth, on the continent and in the diaspora, about the great African cultures, languages and civilisations Following the death of Bernie Grant in 2000, ARM UK became inactive.
Class action (2004) In 2004, controversial reparations lawyer
Ed Fagan launched a class action lawsuit against insurance market
Lloyd's of London for their role in insuring
slave ships involved in the
transatlantic slave trade. The case was unsuccessful.
Apologies On 27 November 2006, British Prime Minister
Tony Blair issued a statement expressing "deep sorrow" for Britain's role in the slave trade, saying it had been "profoundly shameful". The statement was criticised by reparations activists in Britain, with
Esther Stanford stating that Blair should have issued "an apology of substance", which would then be followed by "various reparative measures including financial compensation". On 24 August 2007, then-
Mayor of London Ken Livingstone publicly apologised for
London's role in the transatlantic slave trade during a commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the passing of the
1807 Slave Trade Act. In the speech, Livingston called on the
British Government to pass legislation to create a UK-wide Annual Slavery Memorial Day, which would commemorate slavery. Blair issued another apology in 2007 after meeting with Ghanaian President John Kufuor during Ghana’s 50th independence anniversary celebrations. While his remarks again expressed sorrow and described the transatlantic slave trade as a “stain on history,” they were still viewed by critics as falling short of acknowledging Britain’s systemic role and legal responsibility. Advocates for reparations contended that such language, while symbolic, failed to meet the standards of restorative justice or to lead to any binding policy change.
Heirs of Slavery In February 2023, former
BBC journalist
Laura Trevelyan, whose family had owned plantations in
Grenada, travelled to Grenada to make an apology for harm caused and to give reparations. Her family has also apologised to the island nation for harm caused by slavery, and the group has called on the British Prime Minister and
King Charles to make a formal apology on behalf of the United Kingdom. In April 2023, she co-founded Heirs of Slavery, a group of descendants of people who had profited from British transatlantic slavery and want to make amends. Trevelyan's family has donated money towards education schemes in Grenada via
CARICOM, and hopes that Heirs of Slavery will bring similar actions on a greater scale. , the other members of the group are
David Lascelles, 8th
Earl of Harewood; Charles Gladstone, who is descended from prime minister
William Gladstone; journalist
Alex Renton;
United States Slavery ended in the United States in 1865 with the end of the
American Civil War and the ratification of the
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction". At that time, an estimated four million
African Americans were set free. There are instances of reparations for slavery, relating to the
Atlantic slave trade, dating back to at least 1783 in North America, The call for reparations for
racism has also been made alongside calls for reparations for slavery. As its name suggests, the bill recommended the creation of a commission to study the "impact of slavery on the social, political and economic life of our nation"; however, there are cities and institutions that have initiated reparations in the US (see for a list). In 1999, African-American lawyer and activist
Randall Robinson, founder of the
TransAfrica advocacy organization, wrote that America's history of race riots, lynching, and institutional discrimination have "resulted in $1.4 trillion in losses for African Americans". Economist Robert Browne stated that, the ultimate goal of reparations should be to "restore the black community to the economic position it would have if it had not been subjected to slavery and discrimination". He estimates a fair reparation value anywhere between $1.4 to $4.7
trillion, or roughly $142,000 () for every black American living today. and $17.1 trillion. Opposition to slavery reparations is reflected in the general population. In a study conducted by
YouGov in 2014, only 37% of Americans believed that enslaved people should have been provided compensation in the form of cash after being freed. Furthermore, only 15% believed that descendants of enslaved people should receive cash payments. The findings indicated a clear divide between black and
white Americans. The study summarized its findings: "Only 6% of white Americans support cash payments to the descendants of
slaves, compared to 59% of
black Americans. Similarly, only 19% of whites – and 63% of blacks – support special education and job training programs for the descendants of slaves." In 2014, American journalist
Ta-Nehisi Coates published an article titled "
The Case for Reparations", which discussed the continued effects of slavery and
Jim Crow laws and made renewed demands for reparations. Coates refers to Rep. John Conyers Jr.'s H.R.40 Bill, pointing out that Congress's failure to pass this bill expresses a lack of willingness to right their past wrongs. In response to the article, conservative journalist
Kevin D. Williamson published an article titled "The Case Against Reparations". In it, Williamson argues: "The people to whom reparations are owed are long dead." In September 2016, the
United Nations' Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent encouraged Congress to pass H.R.40 to study reparations proposals. Still, the Working Group did not directly endorse any specific reparations proposal. The report noted that there exists a legacy of racial inequality in the United States, and explained that "Despite substantial changes since the end of the enforcement of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another, continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of African Americans today." The report notes that, a "dangerous ideology of systemic racism inhibits social cohesion among the US population". The topic of reparations gained renewed attention in 2020 as the
Black Lives Matter movement named reparations as one of their policy goals in the United States. In 2020, rapper
T.I. supported reparations that would give every African American million and asserted that slavery caused mass incarcerations, poverty, and other ills.
Caribbean From the perspective of
international law, it is questionable whether slavery, genocide, and other
crimes against humanity had been outlawed at the time they were committed in the Caribbean; for example, "Although the factual appearance of genocide can be traced back at least to ancient times, its prohibition by international law appears to be a phenomenon of the early 20th century". Additionally, according to internationally established customs, a successor government is responsible for providing reparative justice. Under the international principle of
intertemporal law, today's prohibitions cannot be applied retroactively. There is a legal argument suggesting that, exceptions to intertemporal law apply in cases of crimes against humanity, as European states and their representatives could not expect slavery to be legal in the future (referred to as teleological reduction of the principle). However, it is a complex area of law.
CARICOM Reparations Commission The
Caribbean Community (CARICOM), established in 1973, is an
intergovernmental organisation that is a
political and
economic union of 15 member states throughout the
Caribbean. Until 1995, it comprised only the English-speaking parts of the Caribbean, until the addition of
Suriname (Dutch) in 1995; Haiti and other non-
Anglophone nations have since joined. In 2013, in the first of a series of lectures in Georgetown, Guyana, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the
1763 Berbice Slave Revolt, Principal of the
Cave Hill Campus of the
University of the West Indies, Sir
Hilary Beckles urged the CARICOM countries to emulate the position adopted by the Jews who were persecuted during the Second World War and have since organized a
Jewish reparations fund. Following Beckles' advice, the CARICOM Reparations Commission was created in September 2013. In 2014, 15 Caribbean nations unveiled the "CARICOM Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice", which spelled out demands for reparations from Europe ...for the enduring suffering inflicted by the Atlantic slave trade". Among these demands were formal apologies from all nations involved (as opposed to "statements of regret"),
repatriation of displaced Africans to their homeland, programs to help Africans learn about and share their histories, and institutions to improve slavery descendants' literacy, physical health, and psychological health. Representatives of Caribbean states have repeatedly announced their intention to bring the issue to the
International Court of Justice (ICJ). More recently, in 2016, Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to the United States, Sir
Ronald Sanders, called on
Harvard University "to demonstrate its remorse and its debt to unnamed slaves from Antigua and Barbuda". According to Sanders,
Isaac Royall Jr., who was the first endowed professor of law at
Harvard, relied on the slaves on his plantation in Antigua when establishing
Harvard Law School.
Sanders recommended these reparations come in the form of annual scholarships for Antiguans and Barbudans.
Barbados In 2012, the
Barbadian government established a twelve-member Reparations Task Force to sustain the local, regional, and international momentum for reparations. Barbados was then leading the way in "calling for reparations from former colonial powers for the injustices suffered by slaves and their families". , the Barbados National Task Force on Reparations, part of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, is seeking reparations from wealthy British MP
Richard Drax for his ancestors' involvement in slavery. The Drax family still owns a large estate in Barbados; Richard Drax is said to be worth "at least £150m". If the Commission's request to return Drax Hall to Barbados is refused, the government intended as of January 2023 to take the matter to
international arbitration.
Guyana In 2007,
Guyana President
Bharrat Jagdeo formally called on European nations to pay reparations for the slave trade. President Jagdeo stated: "Although some members of the international community have recognized their active role in this despicable system, they need to go step further and support reparations."
Haiti Having attained its independence from
France in 1804 through a brutal and costly
war, the case for reparations to
Haiti was tenable. Shortly after that, France would demand that the newly founded Haiti pay the French government and enslavers 90 million francs for the "theft" of the enslaved people's own lives (
compensated emancipation) and the land that they had turned into profitable sugar and coffee-producing plantations to recognize the fledgling nation's independence formally. French banks and
Citibank financed this debt and finally paid off in 1947. In 2003, then-President of
Haiti Jean-Bertrand Aristide demanded that France compensate Haiti for more than US$21 billion, the modern equivalent of the 90 million gold francs Haiti was forced to pay to gain international recognition. Aristide later accused France and the United States of overthrowing him in a
successful coup d'état: he claimed that they did this in retaliation for his demands.
Jamaica In 2004, a coalition of Jamaican activists, including
Rastafari members, demanded that
European nations that had participated in the slave trade should fund the resettlement of 500,000 Rastafari in
Ethiopia (which they estimated to be 72.5 billion
pound sterling, or roughly, $150,000 per person). The British government rejected the demand. The opposition cited
Britain's role in abolishing the slave trade as a reason that Britain should issue no reparations. In 2021, the Jamaican government again revisited the idea of reparations for slavery. It was reported that the Jamaican government was seeking some 7 billion pounds sterling in reparations for the damages of slavery, including the 20,000,000 paid out to former enslavers by the British government.
Muslim world Reparations for
historical slavery in the Muslim world were proposed. ==By region of origin of slaves==