Turn a landmark resolution into actual, enforceable commitments
Centuries after the transatlantic slave trade reshaped the human world, Accra has become the gathering place for a reckoning long deferred. Following a landmark UN General Assembly resolution declaring that trade the gravest crime against humanity, more than 80 nations are convening in Ghana to ask not merely whether justice is owed, but how it might actually be delivered. The conference, called Next Steps, represents the most ambitious attempt yet to transform moral recognition into institutional mechanism — to give enforceable form to what history has long demanded in principle.
- A UN resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity has passed with 123 votes, but the abstentions of the UK and all EU member states reveal how contested the path forward remains.
- Ghana's three-day Accra conference is drawing heads of state, legal experts, and civil society leaders from over 80 countries — the largest coordinated push for reparatory justice the world has yet seen.
- Emmanuel Macron's attendance carries charged significance: his recent use of the word 'reparations' breaks with a deliberate silence maintained by French leaders for generations.
- Pope Francis's historic apology for the Vatican's role in legitimizing slavery signals that even the most resistant institutions are beginning to adopt the language of accountability.
- The conference's five core objectives aim to build global panels and frameworks that convert the UN resolution from declaration into enforceable commitment — the critical test of whether this moment has real teeth.
Accra is hosting a conversation that has taken centuries to arrive. Beginning Wednesday, Ghana's three-day Next Steps conference will bring together heads of state, historians, legal experts, and civil society representatives from more than 80 countries to do something unprecedented: translate a landmark UN resolution into concrete, enforceable commitments for reparatory justice.
Three months ago, the UN General Assembly voted 123 to declare the transatlantic slave trade — roughly 400 years of forced African trafficking — the gravest crime against humanity. Ghana proposed the resolution on behalf of African Union member states. The United States, Israel, and Argentina voted against it; the UK and all EU member states abstained. For a continent that had pursued reparations through fragmented efforts since at least the 1993 Abuja Proclamation, the vote represented a new threshold of international recognition.
The conference will organize around five core objectives, including establishing international panels on reparatory justice and restitution. On June 19, participants will gather at Osu Castle — a 17th-century fortress in Accra once central to the slave trade — to mark Juneteenth. Among the speakers will be the presidents of Ghana, Liberia, Namibia, Senegal, and France. Macron's presence is notable: last month he used the word 'reparations' in reference to France's role in African enslavement, a term his predecessors had deliberately avoided. Pope Francis also issued a historic apology for the Vatican's role in legitimizing slavery — signs that institutions long resistant to accountability are beginning to shift.
The gathering includes representatives from Latin America, the Caribbean, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the NAACP, reflecting an effort to build a genuine global coalition. Kyeretwie Osei of the African Union's civil society organ called this the most promising moment the global reparations discourse has yet seen. What unfolds over these three days will determine whether the UN resolution becomes a blueprint for action — or remains, like so many declarations before it, a statement of principle without consequence.
Accra is about to become the center of a conversation that has taken centuries to reach this moment. Starting Wednesday, Ghana will host a three-day conference called Next Steps, drawing heads of state, government ministers, historians, legal experts, and civil society representatives from more than 80 countries. They are coming to do something that has never been attempted at this scale: turn a landmark United Nations resolution into actual, enforceable commitments for reparatory justice.
Three months ago, the UN General Assembly voted to declare the transatlantic slave trade—the forced trafficking of Africans that lasted roughly 400 years, from the early 16th century through the late 19th—the gravest crime against humanity. Ghana had proposed the resolution on behalf of African Union member states. The vote was 123 in favor. The United States, Israel, and Argentina voted against it. Fifty-two countries, including the United Kingdom and all European Union member states, abstained. It was a watershed moment for a continent that had pursued reparations through fragmented efforts for decades, from the Abuja Proclamation of 1993 onward, without achieving the kind of international recognition this resolution now provides.
The conference will convene around five core objectives, including the creation of a global framework to advance the resolution's aims and the establishment of international panels dedicated to reparatory justice and restitution. On June 19, participants will gather at Osu Castle—a 17th-century Danish fortress in Accra that once served as a nexus of the slave trade—to mark Juneteenth, the day commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. The speakers will include the African Union commission chair, the prime minister of Barbados, and the presidents of Ghana, Liberia, Namibia, Senegal, and France. Emmanuel Macron's presence carries particular weight: last month, the French president called for his country to address its role in African enslavement, using the word "reparations"—a term previous French leaders had deliberately avoided.
What makes this moment distinct is not the resolution itself, but what comes after. The UN decision calls for member states to engage in "inclusive, good-faith dialogue" on reparatory justice and to return cultural and other properties of value to their countries of origin. It acknowledges that the legacies of enslavement persist in the present day. Yet resolutions are declarations. The Accra conference is designed to convert momentum into mechanism—to ask the harder question of how these commitments actually get implemented.
Recent developments suggest the international climate is shifting. Beyond Macron's statement, Pope Francis issued a historic apology last month for the Vatican's role in legitimizing slavery and for its delayed condemnation of the practice. These are not trivial symbolic gestures; they represent institutions that have long resisted the language of accountability now adopting it.
Kyeretwie Osei, head of programmes at the African Union's civil society policy organ, described the moment as the most promising the global discourse on reparatory justice has yet seen. "There is this slow but really substantive movement towards some sort of global reckoning on this issue," he said. The conference, he argued, would allow Africa to build the structures and channel the political will necessary to give practical meaning to the resolution.
The gathering will include not only African nations but also representatives from Latin America and the Caribbean, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the NAACP. Liliane Umubyeyi, executive director of African Futures Lab, a nonprofit focused on racial injustice, sees this as an opportunity to broaden the reparations movement into a genuine global coalition. "This would significantly accelerate the reparations agenda," she said, "especially if other international institutions that have previously been hesitant to engage with the issue begin to do so."
What happens in Accra over the next three days will determine whether the UN resolution becomes a blueprint for action or remains, like so many declarations before it, a statement of principle without teeth. The conference is the first test of whether political momentum can be transformed into the kind of institutional commitment that actually changes how nations reckon with historical injustice.
Citas Notables
There is this slow but really substantive movement towards some sort of global reckoning on this issue. This conference is really going to allow Africa to ensure that it has the structures that would be necessary and the political will that we've seen to be properly leveraged.— Kyeretwie Osei, head of programmes at the African Union's civil society policy organ
This would significantly accelerate the reparations agenda, especially if other international institutions that have previously been hesitant to engage with the issue begin to do so.— Liliane Umubyeyi, executive director of African Futures Lab
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does Ghana matter as the host? Why not somewhere else?
Osu Castle is still standing in Accra. It's where enslaved people were held before being shipped across the Atlantic. Hosting the conference there isn't symbolic—it's literal. You're having this conversation in the place where the crime happened.
The US voted against the resolution. Does that matter for what happens next?
It signals that enforcement won't be automatic or universal. But 123 countries voted yes. That's the coalition that matters now. The question is whether they actually follow through.
What does "reparatory justice" actually mean in practice? Is it money?
It's broader than that. The resolution calls for restitution of cultural property, dialogue, historical truth-telling. Money might be part of it, but so is returning artifacts, acknowledging what happened, changing how institutions teach about slavery.
Macron calling for reparations—that's new for France, right?
Very new. French leaders have historically avoided that word entirely. His statement last month signals that even countries that benefited enormously from slavery are starting to feel pressure to engage differently.
What's the risk here? What could go wrong?
The conference could produce another set of commitments that countries sign and then ignore. Resolutions are easy. Implementation is where things break down. The real test comes after Accra, when countries have to actually do something.
Who's watching this most closely?
African nations, obviously. But also the Caribbean, which has its own reparations movement. And diaspora communities in the US and Europe. This isn't just about governments—it's about whether institutions that have held onto stolen artifacts and benefited from slavery will actually return them.