Commonwealth leaders gathered this week in Samoa for the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Authorities Assembly (CHOGM).
That is the primary time the summit has been held in a Pacific Small Island Growing State (PSIDS).
The demand for the UK to pay reparations for its position within the transatlantic slave commerce has resurfaced on the summit. Whereas the problem is just not on the official agenda, Commonwealth leaders stated they’d maintain their very own discussions, with or with out the approval of the British authorities.
The UK had vetoed a proposed part of the summit’s remaining communiqué, which referred to reparations. As a substitute, the assertion, launched Saturday, included solely a reference to doable future discussions on “restorative justice with respect to the transatlantic commerce in enslaved Africans.”
So what’s the summit? May this put strain on the UK to pay reparations?
What’s the Commonwealth Summit and who attended?
The Commonwealth Heads of Authorities Assembly (CHOGM) is held each two years and every of the 56 Commonwealth member nations takes turns internet hosting the summit.
This yr’s summit started on Monday in Samoa’s capital, Apia, and ran till Saturday.
The final CHOGM, held in 2022, occurred in Rwanda, East Africa.
The summit was attended by representatives from 56 nations, most of which have roots within the British Empire.
This yr, local weather change takes heart stage within the debates. International locations are engaged on the Commonwealth Oceans Declaration to guard our bodies of water. International locations are additionally discussing the best way to obtain local weather finance targets.
The summit additionally held discussions amongst Commonwealth girls to push for better gender equality.
Some leaders of Commonwealth nations, together with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, opted to attend the BRICS summit in Russia this yr as a substitute of the Commonwealth summit.
India’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju attended the Commonwealth summit in Modi’s place.
After every summit, member states difficulty a remaining joint communiqué.
Had been reparations for slavery on the agenda?
No, they weren’t, however many individuals assume they need to have been.
For greater than 300 years, between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, not less than 12.5 million Africans have been kidnapped and compelled onto American and European ships, trafficked throughout the Atlantic and bought as slaves within the Americas.
The UK’s involvement within the slave commerce started in 1562, and by the 1730s, the UK was the most important slave-trading nation on the planet, in line with the UK parliament web site.
The web site provides that British ships transported greater than three million Africans, primarily to the British colonies in North America and the Caribbean.
Till now, UK leaders have resisted participating in discussions about paying reparations to nations that obtained trafficked slaves and the place their descendants now reside.
The British authorities maintains that no reparations will probably be paid for slavery. In April 2023, former Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak refused to apologize for the UK’s position within the slave commerce or pay reparations.
At this yr’s summit, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed that reparations wouldn’t be on the agenda.
He instructed reporters in the beginning of the summit: “Slavery is abhorrent… there isn’t a doubt about it. However I believe from my perspective and taking the method that I simply took, I’d moderately roll up my sleeves and work with them on the present challenges going ahead than spend plenty of time on the previous.”
Starmer stated he as a substitute wished to give attention to present challenges, akin to local weather change.
Leaders advocating for reparations, such because the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, preserve that the legacy of the slave commerce continues to have an effect on Caribbean nations.
“That they had nothing to begin with and construct on: no land, no cash, no coaching, no schooling,” he instructed The Guardian newspaper.
King Charles III of the UK additionally spoke on the summit. He stated that whereas “none of us can change the previous,” we should study classes to “appropriate the inequalities that persist.” Nonetheless, he didn’t name for reparations, as a substitute urging leaders to seek out “inventive methods” to deal with the previous.
What do Commonwealth leaders say?
Commonwealth leaders stated they’d nonetheless proceed with “plans to look at reparative justice” for the slave commerce, the BBC reported on Thursday.
The BBC reported that African leaders and officers from Caricom, a bloc of 21 Caribbean nations, have been additionally pushing for a separate part to be included within the official assertion on restorative justice.
Throughout the summit, Caricom proposed a 10-point reparation plan, together with a proper apology, debt cancellation, expertise switch, help in resolving the general public well being disaster, and eradication of illiteracy.
Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis stated it was time for the Commonwealth to hunt “justice” for the brutal historical past of slavery.
“Let’s have a dialog about this… All of us admire this, the horrendous influence that the transatlantic slave commerce had on the African diaspora, and it requires justice,” Davis instructed the information outlet Politico.
Nonetheless, UK officers managed to take away this separate part from the assertion. As a substitute, the assertion made a a lot briefer reference to doable future debates on restorative justice.
He talked about requires “discussions on reparatory justice relating to the transatlantic commerce in enslaved Africans and chattel slavery…they agreed that the time has come for a significant, truthful and respectful dialog to forge a typical future primarily based on fairness.”
If the UK needed to pay reparations, how a lot would they be?
Even when the assertion issued by the leaders on the summit had contained a directive to pay reparations, it’s not legally binding. Nonetheless, it might add to rising strain on the UK to contemplate reparations.
In June 2023, the Brattle Group Report on Reparations for Transatlantic Slavery was revealed.
Brattle is an financial consulting group primarily based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The group researches financial points for organizations and governments all over the world.
Brattle compiled the report for the College of the West Indies, and former Worldwide Courtroom of Justice jurist Patrick Robinson offered his insights.
The report estimates that the UK must pay $24 billion in reparations.
To whom may reparations for slavery be paid?
The Brattle report says the UK owes reparations to 14 Caribbean nations. These embrace Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago.
Different nations that performed a task within the transatlantic slave commerce, together with Portugal, the Netherlands and France, have additionally refused to debate reparations or have determined to not pay them.
Some nations have apologized, such because the Netherlands in 2019. Nonetheless, the Netherlands additionally dominated out paying reparations and as a substitute established a fund of roughly $216 million (€200 million) to advertise social initiatives within the Netherlands. , the Dutch Caribbean and Suriname.
Reparations for slavery have been paid up to now: to slave house owners. In 1833, the British authorities agreed to compensation of 20 million kilos to slave house owners for the “lack of their property” after passing laws to abolish slavery within the British Empire, at present price about 2.6 billion kilos. {dollars} (£2 billion).
