Moving Beyond Recognition Toward Repair for Enslavement
Originally published in Just Security on May 8, 2026.
In March, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a historic resolution condemning chattel enslavement and the trade in enslaved people. The legally non-binding resolution recognizes the enduring legacies of chattel enslavement and the trade on African descendent peoples. Ghana sponsored the resolution, securing 123 supportive votes. Argentina, Israel, and the United States voted against the resolution, however. Significantly, 52 countries abstained, including Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and all European Union member States.
The EU and others criticized the General Assembly resolution for implying “a hierarchy among atrocity crimes” because the resolution denounces chattel enslavement and the slave trade,
as the gravest crime against humanity by reason of the definitive break in world history, scale, duration, systemic nature, brutality and enduring consequences that continue to structure the lives of all people through racialized regimes of labour, property and capital.