Why UN Declares Transatlantic Slave Trade The Gravest Crime Against Humanity – OpEd

The United Nations has voted to describe the transatlantic chattel slave trade as the "gravest crime against humanity" and called for reparations as "a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs". The landmark resolution was strongly backed by the African Union (AU) and the Caribbean Community (Caricom). The Caribbean nations, through bodies like the Caribbean Community, known as CARICOM, have long laid out a detailed reparatory justice framework. 

In a historic step, Ghana moved a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly declaring the Transatlantic Slave Trade the gravest crime against humanity. Ghana's president, John Dramani Mahama said: "Let it be recorded that when history beckoned, we did what was right for the memory of millions who suffered the indignity of slavery."

The voting in favour were 123 states, while Argentina, Israel and the US voted against. There were 52 abstentions, including the UK and members of the EU. The UK said it recognised the gravity of the issues addressed in the resolution. For four centuries, seven European nations including the UK enslaved and trafficked more than 15 million Africans across the Atlantic. The scale of the chattel slavery was such that 18th and 19th-century abolitionists coined the term "crime against humanity" to describe it. Historians have also linked wealth from enslavement to mass industrialisation in the west. The UN first acknowledged that slavery was a crime in a 2001 conference against racism, xenophobia and related intolerance in Durban, South Africa.

The United States, under Donald Trump, voted against the resolution. It is a reflex born of the US empire: the same empire built on enslaved labour, Jim Crow, and a racial caste system that has never been dismantled. For a country whose wealth was extracted from the bones of millions of Africans, opposing a resolution that calls the slave trade what it is, the gravest crime against humanity, is not surprising. It is a calculated act of historical denial, consistent with Washington's broader foreign policy of shielding its own foundational sins while lecturing the Global South on human rights. Trump's administration has always acted with perversion, from emboldening white supremacists at home to sabotaging international efforts at restorative justice.

This resolution is not merely symbolic. It gives renewed impetus to the global reparations movement. African states, led by Ghana, are now placing the issue at the heart of the UN agenda. The vote creates a strong political anchor for nations to pursue bilateral and multilateral mechanisms for restitution, from debt cancellation to cultural repatriation to direct financial compensation. Crucially, the demand being advanced is not only about monetary compensation; it is about the resetting of the global world order. Reparations and restitution, in this broader sense, encompass the restructuring of international financial institutions, the return of looted cultural heritage, the correction of historical injustices embedded in global trade and diplomacy, and the dismantling of the racial hierarchies that continue to shape relations between the Global South and the imperial core.

Socialist and Progressive World stands in solidarity with Ghana, with Africa, with the Caribbean, and with all peoples of the Global South demanding justice. In a solidarity statement, it pointed to a calculated act of historical denial, consistent with Washington's broader foreign policy of shielding its own foundational sins while lecturing the Global South on human rights, and further sabotaging international efforts at restorative justice.

It said that Israel's vote against the resolution is equally telling, voting against the Transatlantic Slave Trade as a crime against humanity requiring reparations. Thus, Tel Aviv aligned itself with Washington, as it nearly always does, to stand against the moral reckoning that the Global South is demanding.

The third "no" vote came from Argentina. Historically, Argentina presents itself as a white European outpost in South America. That transformation was no accident. It was engineered. In the 19th century, President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, an avowed white supremacist, implemented a systematic campaign to erase the country's Black population. To vote in favour of a resolution naming the slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity would force Argentina to confront its own foundational violence, a reckoning its ruling class has spent centuries avoiding.

The statement concluded that the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade is no longer a footnote; it is being centred as the foundational crime of the modern world order. The opposition of the United States, Israel, and Argentina is a badge of honour. It reveals exactly whose interests are threatened by the truth. Socialist and Progressive World stands in solidarity with Ghana, with Africa, with the Caribbean, and with all peoples of the Global South demanding justice. Reparations now! Reset the world order!!