OHCHR: High-level Dialogue on Reparatory Justice

High Commissioner, Excellencies, distinguished delegates and colleagues, it is my pleasure to welcome representatives of Member States, United Nations entities and civil society organizations, as well as participants joining us online from countries and regions around the world. I extend a particular warm welcome to our distinguished panelists. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is pleased to convene this high-level dialogue on reparatory justice at a pivotal moment. As we commemorate the 25th anniversary, of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, we also take stock of a year marked by important developments and growing momentum in the field of reparatory justice for legacy of enslavement and colonialism and increasing recognition of its key role in dismantling the systemic racism faced by Africans and people of African descent globally. We'll begin with a keynote address by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Volker Turk. This will be followed by a roundtable discussion moderated by Ms. Ebony Redo-Bumble, Director of the Scott Trust's Legacies of Enslavement programs at The Guardian newspaper. Mrs. Rado Bambach, thank you for accepting our invitation. We will then open the floor for question and answer, uh, session, providing an opportunity for all in the room and online to make interventions and engage directly with our panelists. Please note that the event is being broadcast live, will be recorded, and interpretation is available in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. We hope that the discussions today will contribute to furthering the momentum towards reparatory justice. In this period, UN Human Rights is also officially launching five explainers that unpack different aspects of reparatory justice, along with the concrete examples of action taken by states and third actors. This first set of explainers provides an overview of the key components of reparatory justice, a gender transformative approach to reparatory justice, apologies, memorization and the links between reparatory justice and environmental justice. We invite you to take one of the printed cards in the room, which provide links to the explainers. We also joined here by the Her Excellency, the Ambassador of the Bahamas and the Ambassador Al Joweni from the African Union, who is in charge of the file of reparatory justice. High Commissioner, you have the floor. Thank you.

Well, great to be here. Good afternoon, everyone, and in particular, welcome to our panelists. I had a chance to engage with some of them in more detail, and I will speak to that in a minute. But really great that we have this event, a very important one. It's my pleasure to welcome you to this high-level dialogue on reparatory justice for Africans and people of African descent. The trade in enslaved Africans was an organized system of domination and oppression that treated tens of millions of African men, women, and children as commodities and denied their humanity. Women and girls endured horrific harms, including sexual and gender-based violence. The legacy of these injustices lives on today. Their consequences, together with those of colonialism more generally, continue to shape who has opportunity, who has security and power, and who does not. People of African descent are more likely to live in poverty, perpetuating inequalities from one generation to the next. Racism is part of daily life for people of African descent, and I hear this all the time whenever I have civil society meetings in different countries around the world. The job interview that never comes, the apartment that is suddenly unavailable, the pain that is not taken seriously in hospital, the abilities that are underestimated at school. Police in different regions are several times more likely to use force against people of African descent. In many countries, people of African descent are disproportionately represented in prisons and across the criminal justice system. And the composition, the demographic composition in prison systems is, for me, always a very good mirror of who we are actually excluding. And it's an important element in our analysis. White supremacist movements are seizing on fear and division, and their narratives are creating more space in the mainstream for hatred and dehumanization. Artificial intelligence and other technologies-- and you know that we have been very vocal about this, not just of late, but for quite some time. But these technologies are already reproducing human biases. And if we are not careful, they could deepen systemic racism against Africans and people of African descent. At the global level, our economic and governance systems still reflect centuries of exploitation. Developing countries, many of which are former colonies, are burdened with unsustainable debt, preventing them from making crucial investments at home. Meanwhile, we people of African descent are woefully underrepresented where decisions are made, from local government to the boardroom to the halls of international diplomacy. We are meeting today because there is growing recognition of the need to acknowledge and take responsibility for the legacies of enslavement, the trade, in enslaved Africans and colonialism at international, regional, and national levels. This echoes calls made by people of African descent for centuries. The General Assembly, the African Union, CARICOM, and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, including in its recent General Recommendation 40, have all taken steps to clarify, to advocate, and to act for reparatory justice. Excellencies, distinguished participants, reparatory justice takes many forms and must not be confused with financial compensation alone. It involves exposing and coming to terms with the truth of our common history. It means formal apologies, truth-seeking, and memorializing the experiences and contributions of Africans and people of African descent. It means restitution of cultural artifacts, compensation, and taking steps to ensure that events of the past will not happen again. It involves awareness-raising and education across society, as well as medical and psychosocial support for communities of African descent to address intergenerational trauma. In short, it requires a combination of measures to address past and ongoing injustices. Over the past several years, countries and others have taken action in different ways. Some governments have offered apologies to their own communities or to other states, including Belgium, Brazil, Germany, and the Netherlands. Colombia, Mexico, Portugal, and others have started memorialization projects or proclaimed commemorative anniversaries. In France, Namibia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, some public spaces and monuments are being revisited to acknowledge the legacies of enslavement, the trade in enslaved Africans, and colonialism. Governments and institutions have started returning the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, for example. Local authorities, religious groups, universities, media outlets, and businesses have also begun to confront their histories. For example, earlier this year, Pope Leo apologized for the Catholic Church's involvement in legitimizing slavery and the delay in condemning it for centuries. These are all important steps. At the same time, no state has fully accounted for the harms of the past or systemic racism today. Many countries still lack anti-racism legislation, and not even a quarter have comprehensive anti-discrimination laws. More effective implementation of existing laws and targeted investments are crucial to remove barriers for people of African descent to access quality health, housing, education, justice, and job opportunities. Changing laws can help change attitudes so that racism is rejected and challenged wherever it appears. Political leadership can and must pave the way. Africans and people of African descent in all their diversity, women in particular, need to be at the heart of these efforts so that the responses are meaningful. States can issue apologies and create public spaces for truth-telling about their own history of enslavement and colonialism and their ongoing consequences. They can teach a more accurate and inclusive history in schools and universities. And we urgently need reform at the global level to help correct historical exclusions. Reforming the international financial architecture could help ease crushing debt. while ensuring greater participation of African countries in relevant decisions. There was a whole debate at UNGA around the membership in the Security Council, for example, permanent seat for Africa. This would enable governments to invest in education, health, and other essential needs. Decisive action on climate justice can help acknowledge that Africans and people of African descent are among those who face its harshest impacts. My office, as you know, is a steadfast partner. We support states in advancing the rights of Africans and people of African descent. For example, we have and you have just mentioned it we have developed a set of tools to assist states in their efforts to address reparatory justice, and we are launching this explainer today on apologies as one measure that can contribute to this process. We will continue creating spaces for listening and dialogue with Africans and people of African descent, and we do everything in our power to help protect human rights defenders working on these issues. We have a fellowship program for people of African descent, which has almost become a group of friends all around the world to promote these this area of work, and they have actually, I would say, they have become our eyes and ears throughout the world, and it has become a very important group of people to work with. A child born in 2026 should not have to carry the weight of centuries of racial discrimination and the horrors of the past. When we repair harms, We do more than reckon with history, and I had a very interesting discussion with the philosopher who is beside me, and she coined for me a very important phrase. She said, we need to put philosophy into the streets, and I fully agree with her on this, and we hope that in the context of the Global Alliance for Human Rights, we can do precisely that. We help dismantle-- we need to help dismantle the foundations of systemic racism to break the cycle of discrimination for the generations that follow. And we help build stronger, more cohesive societies for everyone. And I would like to thank you very much, and in particular, also the panelists. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much, High Commissioner. I will now hand over the moderation to Ms. Rido Bamber for the roundtable discussion. And just to mention before that, that we have over 100 people online also.

Thank you, Dimitar, and thank you to the High Commissioner for your comments and leadership on this issue. It's great to see reparatory justice at the heart of human rights discourse and action, and long may that continue. So as I've been introduced already, I won't go into huge detail, but I am Ebony Riddell-Bamba. I work for the Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement program, which aims to atone for the Guardian newspaper's connections to enslavement. So we understand restorative justice as a process of dialogue and collaboration aimed at repair and healing between the Guardian newspaper, that profited from enslavement and the descendants of the enslaved. And so our work focuses on the geographies where the Guardian founder and his investors were linked to enslavement. So that is the low country region of the southeast of the United States and Jamaica. The work focuses on descendant communities and has a really relational basis. So we understand our work as taking a rights-based approach to this work that is descendant community-led. So I'm going to hand over now to our panelists, but I'll introduce them first and I'll ask them a question in turn, and then we'll have opportunity for questions from in the room and also our online audience. So thank you all for joining us. So first I'd like to introduce His Excellency Amir Al-Jawili, who is the Director of the Citizens and Diaspora Directorate at the African Union Commission. Then we have Her Excellency Patricia A. Hermans, who is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Bahamas to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva on behalf of CARICOM. This includes being the focal point ambassador for CARICOM on human rights matters. Then we have Ms. Almaz Tefera, who is senior researcher on racism in Europe at Human Rights Watch, and her work focuses on human rights, implications of racism, and discrimination based on racial, ethnic, or religious identity in the European Union and the United Kingdom. Ms. Sueli Carneiro from Guedes, Instituto da Mulher Negra. Sueli is the founder of Guelares Black Women's Institute in Brazil and executive coordinator of the program on memory and reparations. She's a philosopher, feminist, and anti-racist activist and writer, focusing on exposing how racism and sexism intersect in the lives of black women. And last but by no means least, Camilla Moore, who is the former chairperson of the California Reparations Task Force in the United States. Camilla is an attorney and a reparatory justice scholar. She served as chairperson of the California Reparations Task Force from June 2021 to June 2023, and under her leadership, the task force produced comprehensive reports and recommendations aimed at addressing the historical injustices, systemic discrimination faced by African American descendants of enslaved individuals. So I'm going to ask a question to each of our panelists in turn. I ask them all to speak slowly and clearly for our interpreters, and also to stick to the time limit so that we have time for this to be a genuinely interactive dialogue. So first, Your Excellency, Amir Al-Jawwili, I have a question for you. In relation to recent developments on reparatory justice, the UN resolution in March, and the third general recommendation, can you reflect on how we ensure the next steps are grounded in human rights, as well as national, regional, and global cooperation?

Thank you, honorable moderator, and of course, thank you, honorable commissioner, for convening this dialogue. In the year that marks the 25th anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action, and of course, the opening of the second decade of people of African descent, the African Union Commission is actually honored to contribute. Allow me to recognize the co-panelist, Her Excellency Patricia Herrmans, Permanent Representative of the Bahamas. on behalf of CARICOM, Ms. Tefera, Ms. Carneiro, and Ms. Camilla Moore. But allow me to take the question you've posed to us heads on, and for it contains basically the whole matter. How do we keep the next steps, and I recall that the next steps was the title of the conference in Ghana that was organized earlier this year under the custodianship of His Excellency President John Mahama, the President of Ghana, but in his capacity as the champion of the African Union for reparatory justice. Next steps, and indeed this question that you put before us, summarizes that all. So grounding in human rights, we would probably take that on three anchors. The first anchor is the simplest and the most important. Reparation is a right, not a favor. And the right has three parts, a holder, a duty bearer, and a remedy. The holder is Africans and people of African descent who have undergone, according to the UN Resolution 8250, the gravest crime that was committed against humanity. The duty bearer is those that committed, organized, and profited, and very important, profited from this transatlantic enslavement, colonialism, and apartheid. Remedy is the full architecture of repair. the full architecture of repair. And last August in this city in Geneva, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination made this explicit in General Recommendation 40, affirming comprehensive reparation and establishing respective responsibilities for all actors that profited. So reparatory justice is therefore an aspiration that has a legal home in the law of state responsibility and in the human rights framework. But the second anchor is comprehensiveness. International human rights law gives us the grammar of repair in five terms, maybe-- restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition. Now, this last one, guarantee of non-repetition, is the one sometimes most often forgotten, and although it is the most consequential. A guarantee of non-reparation and non-repetition is structural. It means dismantling any systemic racism and the inherited hierarchies that the original crimes built, which is why the reform of global governance and of the, including the international financial architecture, is not an adjacent agenda, but a form of structure reparation itself. This breadth is mandated, not improvised. African Union Assembly Decision 884, adopted in February 2024, that's the decision that established the theme of the year 2025, which in turn now became the decade 2026 to 2035, already reached to the great questions of global concern, from the reform of the United Nations Security Council, Honorable Commissioner, you mentioned it, to the reform of the international financial institutions, to climate and debt justices, each of which carries a human rights dimension that reparatory justice now carries forward. Repair reaches also into the realm of knowledge and representation, which we have come to call cognitive justice. It is in that spirit that the African Union pursued the correction of the very map of the world. Last month, as we all know, General Assembly adopted a resolution which welcomed a fair, equal earth projection of the earth so that Africa is no longer diminished in the image by which humanity pictures itself. We're surprised it took quite a few centuries to reach a more accurate map of the world. These crimes distorted not only economies and bodies, but minds and maps, and repair must reach there as well. The third anchor, honorable. Commissioner, Honorable Moderator, is that these crimes do not expire and that remedies must be designed accordingly. General Recommendation 40 is clear that the passage of time is no defense and equally clear that Africans and people of African descent should be enabled to participate fully and effectively in shaping the measures that concern them. Human rights grounded means human rights with the holder in the room. But on the second part of the question, cooperation at the national, regional, and global levels, I would offer this. These are not a hierarchy, but a relay, and a right recognized at one level must be delivered at the others. At the national level, the decisive instrument is collective action plans on reparatory justice with clear timelines developed together with the affected community. At the regional level, Africa has built. the bridge between the national and the global. The African Union has declared the decade, which we've just mentioned, but also constituted two expert mechanisms, a committee of experts, AUSSER, and a reference group of legal experts on reparation, AULR, which our directorate has the big honor to serve as the technical and policy secretariat, and which are currently developing a framework for a common African position. Critically for these audiences, these mechanisms are enriched by the participation of the African human rights mechanism, which is the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, the African Court on Human and People's Rights, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights on Welfare of the Child, and of course, the African Union Commission on International Law. All of these are represented within our two mechanisms. So reparatory justice for the African Union encompasses already, by definition, by structure, by composition, a human rights project carried by its human rights institutions. But Mr. Commissioner and Madam Moderator, we do not act alone. I'm very fortunate to be seated next to Her Excellency, Ambassador of Bahamas, because this June, those mechanisms, the two African mechanisms, for the first time in history, met with the CARICOM Reparations Commission, and the circle now widens to include CELEAC, the community of Latin American and Caribbean states. So the region is speaking to the region, and this is how the global South turns a shared history into a shared claim. That coordination was deepened this September when the African Union Commission and I was honored to be its representative, took part in the third CARICOM Regional Conference on Reparations in Barbados, again, a continuation of this ever-closer Africa-CARICOM coordination, which culminated, at least normatively, by the Addis Ababa Declaration on Transcontinental Partnership in Pursuit of Reparatory Justice for Africans and People of African Descent through Reparations. It was adopted by the second Africa-CARICOM Summit that took place on the 7th of September, 2025, in Addis Ababa. In fact, it was the first summit to be held in presence, because the first one was virtual. And two days ago, I had the big honor to sign on behalf of the chairperson of the African Union Commission a memorandum of understanding with the Federative Republic of Brazil through the ministry and I underline the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, and that was on the memory of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade anchoring that reparatory justice squarely falls within a partnership between also human rights institutions. But at the global level, the ground is even more solid than ever. In March, by 123 votes, the General Assembly of the United Nations named the trafficking and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans the gravest crimes against humanity. That recognition opens the door for the forthcoming engagement of all global actors, including the UN and African Union Commission secretariats. in shaping the activities of the second international decade. And here at the OHCHR's own explorers on reparatory justice, these become a valuable source of information, together with the framework papers that will be developed by the African Union. But this bridge, too, runs in both directions. The relevant UN human rights bodies, including the UN Permanent Forum for People of African Descent and the Working Group of Experts of People of African Descent, each have representatives within our own African Union mechanisms, AUSSUR and AUUR, so that the Geneva and the continental processes are quite literally members of one another. And here it's a particular honor to re-announce what I have announced a few months ago, that for the first time ever, the United Nations Permanent Forum will be hosted in Addis Ababa at the African Union headquarters April next year, bringing the United Nations' principal platforms closer to the continent that it most concerns. In the same spirit, within the human rights perspective, the right to development is among the strongest bridges between the enduring consequences of the past and the claim upon the future, including the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development, which, of course, all of you know better than I, is a subsidiary body of this August Human Rights Council. And we are working towards a dedicated session and side events of that body on the right to development and reparatory justice. So, Madam Moderator, In one breath, the surest way to keep the next steps grounded is to remember that human rights is the common language that allows us to have an international, national, regional, and global way to speak to one another and to keep the rights holders at the center of every sentence. Recognition has been won, but the work of this decade is to turn it together into repair. I thank you, Madam.

Thank you, Your Excellency, in being clear about how we anchor restorative justice and human rights standards and mechanisms, and also for the positive news about the permanent forum coming to Addis next year. So next, I'd like to turn to Her Excellency Patricia Hermans, who is the permanent representative of the Bahamas to the UN office. Can you share the key elements of the recent update to the 10-point plan for reparations, which obviously was originally approved in 2014, there was a revision in 2018, and there has been a very recent update. Could you let us know what warranted that change, what were the driving factors, and what was the process in developing the amended 10-point plan?

Thank you, Madam Moderator, for that important question, and thanks to the OHCHR, both for convening this discussion and for the opportunity to participate on behalf of CARICOM. When CARICOM first adopted its 10-point plan for reparatory justice in 2014, many still regarded reparations as a marginal historical issue. Today, that is no longer the case. There is broad and growing recognition that the legacies of enslavement and colonialism continue to shape contemporary inequalities, and that these legacies require more than remembrance. They require remedy. In that sense, perhaps the most important development since the plan was first revised in 2018 is not simply what has changed within the document itself, but what has changed around it. global conversation has significantly shifted. The original 10-point plan was groundbreaking because it articulated a vision of reparatory justice rooted not primarily in financial compensation, but in development. It identified 10 areas requiring repair, ranging from formal apologies, repatriation, and indigenous people's development, to public health, education, technology transfer, psychological rehabilitation, and debt cancellation. The premise was simple. The legacies of genocide, enslavement, and colonialism continue to affect the social, economic, and developmental realities of Caribbean societies today. Importantly, the plan never accepted the notion that reparations are unfamiliar in international affairs. Throughout history, societies have recognized obligations to repair profound harms. Indeed, following the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, its Parliament approved in 1833 payment of compensation totaling 20 million pounds, estimated at approximately 3 billion pounds in today's purchasing power, to those who claimed ownership of human beings as property. while the enslaved received nothing. Indeed, the public debt incurred to finance those compensation payments remained on the books of the British government until 2015, more than 180 years after Parliament approved the compensation. For many in the Caribbean, there is an enduring irony in this history. Those who benefited from the system were compensated when it ended, while many of those still living in its consequences continue to pay the price of the enduring developmental burdens created by that system, including high levels of debt that limit fiscal space for investment in their people and their future. The central question, therefore, has never been whether societies can repair perceived historical wrongs. The question is why some harms have generated broad acceptance of that principle, while others continue to be debated. The revised plan protects an evolution of content, but its core premise remains unchanged. Acknowledgement must be accompanied by measures capable of repairing enduring harms. Accordingly, the updated framework gives greater attention to issues such as gender justice, cultural restitution, psychological rehabilitation, climate justice, technological sovereignty, the right to development, and strengthen engagement between Africa and its diaspora. This year, CARICOM heads of government formally endorsed the revised manifesto, the CARICOM 10-point plan for reparatory justice, a manifesto for the coming enlightenment. It was recently relaunched at the third CARICOM Regional Conference on Reparations held in Barbados last month, and reflects years of regional consultation and engagement. It brings new vision to the reparations agenda, records the tremendous progress made in the past 13 years by the global community, and seeks to herald an age of enlightenment and a new global order based on equity. At the same time, the update takes place in a profoundly different environmental environment than one in which the plan was first revised in 2018. We've seen important acknowledgements and apologies from governments, faith-based institutions, universities, and financial institutions. We have seen national and local initiatives emerge across different regions. Just last month, Jamaica initiated a significant legal examination of questions surrounding slavery and reparatory justice through a petition now before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. We have also witnessed unprecedented cooperation between Africa and the Caribbean. The Accra Reparations Conference, the African Union's designation of reparations as its 2025 theme, the establishment of new joint African Union-CARICOM mechanisms, and the Addis Ababa Declaration adopted at the second Africa-CARICOM Summit have all signaled a new level of engagement between Africans and people of African descent in pursuit of a shared agenda for justice. At the same time, engagement with European partners has also evolved, particularly on cultural restitution. We have seen tangible examples, including the return of cultural artifacts from European institutions to African countries. These developments remind us that reparatory justice is not a single act, but a range of measures through which acknowledgment can be translated into action. We have also entered a new chapter through the proclamation of the Second International Declaration for People of African Descent. And perhaps most significantly, earlier this year, as has been previously mentioned by the UN the ambassador for the AU, the UN General Assembly adopted the landmark resolution led by Ghana recognizing the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity. This was a historical milestone and a powerful affirmation of truths long advanced by Africans and people of African descent. Its significance lies not only in how it characterizes history, it lies in the questions it poses to the present. Many of the laws, fiscal policies, and institutions that sustained enslavement were deliberately created and enforced by the very states that benefited from them. That history speaks not to the absence of responsibility, but to its source. If humanity now recognizes the magnitude of that injustice, what responsibilities flow from that recognition? And how do we build a future informed by history rather than constrained by it? The 10-point plan remains a roadmap for dialogue, partnership, and action. Its purpose is not simply to look backwards, but to build a more just future. Because ultimately, reparatory justice is not only about what was taken, it is about what can still be restored. I thank you.

Thank you, Ambassador, for your comments on the 10-point plan. and how the profound comment about the world changing around it and this roadmap for dialogue and action, it remains the roadmap for dialogue and action that it always was. So thank you. My next question is for Almaz Tefera from Human Rights Watch. And so I want to hear your reflections, Almaz, on states in Europe and how they've engaged to address the legacies of the past. We've seen some measures, some apologies, some actions towards restitution or returns of colonial era cultural heritage. I'm wondering how those measures have been received by descendant or affected communities and what measures you think should be taken going forward. Thanks, Amos.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this important event that seeks to meet global momentum for reparatory justice. Before speaking about how communities received or reacted to past European state measures purporting to address their legacies of enslavement and colonialism, I want to briefly mention criteria that need to be fulfilled for a measure to even amount to reparatory justice. Reparatory justice should seek to right wrongs, which requires the wrongdoer to accept responsibility and provide full remedies. As reparatory justice seeks to redress serious rights violations, any process has to be grounded in international human rights law and standards. Reparatory justice cannot be placed outside a human rights framework. That means any process has to, at the very least, be survivor and victim as well as centered and community driven. allowing for all voices to be heard and to participate in the process, see states' recognition of wrongs, and seek accountability and redress for the wrongs in a holistic manner to ensure that the full scale of injustices is addressed. While reparatory justice is not about the payment of a sum of money, financial compensation should never be denied by states from the outset of a process, because compensation may be a necessary remedy to redress harm and loss suffered. Such compensation should be directly provided to affected communities. The tireless efforts of social movements in former colonies and in the European diaspora to put reparatory justice onto political agendas is the reason why European states have even felt compelled to take measures. However, to this day, communities and civil society continue to experience strong pushback against full reparatory justice from European states. So what about past European states' apologies? We have seen that some European governments have chosen to express regret rather than issue full apologies to avoid any acknowledgement of wrongdoing and legal responsibility. When looking at how communities received these political statements, we see that many rejected them because European governments had failed to meaningfully consult them beforehand. International human rights standards require that communities are consulted in decisions that concern their livelihoods and future. Therefore, states need to also embed apologies in meaningful consultative reparatory processes. Past state apologies were often tied to declarations that full reparatory justice, such as compensation, were off the table. Reparatory justice requires states' genuine political willingness to engage in a process where the outcome is not predetermined or decided by states. European governments have responded to these issues through interstate dialogue between them and the governments of former colonies. That is problematic for many reasons, including that many indigenous peoples or minorities seeking remedies for colonial injustices are marginalized by their own governments, leaving them effectively unrepresented in any political process. The indigenous Nama and Ovaherero communities in Namibia have therefore long demanded to be made a formal and equal part to a process between the German and Namibian government to discuss how Germany should address its colonial legacy in Namibia. What about European states' return of colonial-era artifacts and ancestral remains? Some European governments recently made pledges at the UN General Assembly to return colonial artifacts. While that is welcome, It is once again important that communities become equal parties in these processes. Restitution is a remedy that should seek to restore the rights of victims that were harmed by putting them in a position had the harm not occurred. Therefore, processes need to follow international human rights law and standards to ensure meaningful participation of communities and ensure respect of their rights and outcomes that restore victims' rights. Lastly, I want to mention one interesting development on reparatory justice in Europe, which demonstrates the perseverance of communities and civil society to advance reparatory justice, despite having experienced pushback at the European political level. In the last couple of years, Belgium's courts have been the stage of pioneer litigation where victims of colonial crimes or their descendants alleged civil liability of the Belgian state for colonial crimes, including crimes against humanity. In 2024, a Belgian court held the Belgian state legally responsible for colonial era forced abductions of mixed-race children in what is now Congo. and was ordered to pay reparations to the victims. A case that initially pursued individual criminal responsibility against the last surviving Belgian official for alleged colonial war crimes in relation to the killing of the first democratically elected prime minister of Congo, Patrice Lumumba, was recently turned into another civil suit against the Belgian state after the accused deceased. Such civil suits have already established or have the potential to establish responsibility for colonial crimes for which reparations must be provided, even if European governments continue to deny legal liability for colonial crimes. European states should realize that affected communities and governments of former colonies are looking for more than symbolic actions, symbolic gestures, or moral responsibility. Reparatory justice claims should therefore not be blocked by using legal concepts such as the principle of intertemporality to deny responsibility or accountability for historical acts. While this principle says in essence that for an act to be considered wrongful, a state has to violate an international obligation in existence at the time of the breach, it does not preclude responsibility for acts that continue after an obligation entered into force. This is affirmed in the UN, United Nations Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation, and derives from obligations under international human rights law, which requires states to provide access to justice to remedy ongoing racial harm rooted in historical legacies. I therefore appeal to European governments to view reparatory justice as a necessary means to reckon with their legacies of colonialism and enslavement, and not as a deal struck between states or as a form of development aid, but instead as an opportunity to finally restore communities' dignity and rights. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ferro, for the reminder for the need for meaningful acknowledgment engagement of descendant communities and accountability at the heart of reparatory justice. We're doing really well on time so far, so just a reminder that there will be questions, so if you have questions online or in the room, we should be moving on to that quite soon. So next, I will turn to Ms. Suely Carneiro. And the question for you is just around recognizing your decades of... decades of work campaigning on anti-racism and for reparatory justice in Brazil, and asking you to give us an overview of progress and what action is still needed from your perspective to pursue reparatory justice in Brazil.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Moderator. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, civil society representatives. The question that brings us together today is clear. Human rights protection systems still function imperfectly, although they have achieved real progress. The Brazilian experience offers important lessons that illustrate this. Brazil's 1988 Constitution established racism as a crime not subject to bail or a statute of limitations, a hard-won achievement of organized black movements, and yet there is still a severe gap between the law and its enforcement. Criminal accountability for racism remains extremely limited, even though Discriminatory practices persist and are frequently reported. Since 1995, black civil society has called on the Brazilian state to adopt public policies to promote racial equality. And that is the meaning for reparations in our country. Some of these targeted policies allow us to measure both progress and the structural barriers that underpin our assertion that everything works imperfectly, but with real achievements. And I would like to highlight three ongoing experiences in Brazil. First, the issue of land rights. The Communities and the black movements have been identifying these. Now, the Brazilian census identified over 7,600 quilombola communities across the country. They're descendants of enslaved Africans. Now, only some 200 of those territories have been fully granted legal title. That means that less than 5% of that population has formal ownership of its lands. And even where land titles have been granted, there's still a lack of basic services, food security and protection against land-related conflicts, undermining the ability of these communities to remain in their ancestral lands. Secondly, the dimension of memory and knowledge. Law 10,639 of 2003 made teaching of Afro-Brazilian history and culture mandatory, and yet research on the implementation of this law shows that 71% of municipal education departments undertake little or no effective action to comply with it. Third example. Access to higher education. Racial quotas for black students in universities are one of the most significant achievements of Afro-Brazilians in the field of public policy. In 1997, only 2% of university students were black. In 2018, for the first time in history, black students accounted for over 50% of enrollment in public universities. But gaining admission does not resolve the problem. We still face enormous challenges in ensuring that these students can remain in higher education. And when they enter the labor market, they continue to encounter racial barriers, which act as a filter, restricting access to leadership positions and higher pay. These Brazilian experiences offer important lessons for the international agenda. Reparations in the 21st century cannot be reduced to symbolic, isolated or palliative forms of compensation. They require the structural transformation of the dynamics that perpetuate inequality and systemic racism today. They require a robust and inclusive development agenda capable of enabling Afro-Brazilians and people of African descent more broadly to enter a virtuous cycle of collective prosperity as a necessary condition for fulfilling the emancipatory ambitions of the Durban Conference for people of African descent. And as part of this path, The Brazilian government's recent recognition of SDG 18 on ethnic and racial equality and the recent establishment of a group of friends of SDG 18 open up a fundamental possibility, ensuring that racial justice is no longer confined to denouncing human rights violations and nor is restorative justice, but rather they begin to guide development choices. Confronting racism requires economic, social, cultural, and environmental commitments. It requires decisions about who has access to land, income, assets, education, health care, financing, and environmental protection. In other words, racial equality must also become an organizing principle of development, anchored in commitments capable of guiding state action. As advocated for by the Brazilian Black women's movement, so do we demand the right to "bem-viver", living well. This is a concept rooted in Indigenous and Andean traditions and reinterpreted by Black people and Black women in Brazil as an ethical and political paradigm and a new civilizational framework indispensable to the full realization of human rights in the Americas. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Carneiro, for reminding us of the important role of civil society, Black women-led organizations, and also the importance of implementing legal instruments that we have and the continuing struggle. Thank you. So our last speaker from the floor is Ms. Camilla Moore from the California Reparations Commission. And I wanted to ask you about progress in relation to your work, but also more broadly federally in the United States. So federal efforts aimed at reparatory justice have seen little progress in the US, but there's been more significant progress at state and municipal level. including the work of your task force. So what have been some of the essential building blocks for that at state and local level, and what lessons can you share with us in terms of that experience?

Thank you, Madam Moderator, for the question. I want to also extend my appreciation to my esteemed panelists and to everyone in the room for your participation. I also want to thank my law firm, Benjamin Crump Law, for their support. We also work on historical and justice cases every day. As mentioned, I chaired the California Reparations Task Force, and I want to begin my remarks with the national record documented in our final report, which we commissioned in June 2023. Between 1619 and 1808, approximately 300,000 enslaved people were trafficked to the United States. By 1860, nearly 4 million people were held in slavery. Our final report also documents the rape and sexual exploitation of enslaved women and girls, as the UN High Commissioner mentioned in his opening remarks. Enslavers controlled their reproductive lives and claimed ownership of children born to enslaved women, of which I am a descendant. Across more than 200 years, enslavers extracted an estimated $14 trillion in labor from the people they enslaved. That estimate is conservative. It only captures stolen labor. It does not capture, for instance, the full human cost of slavery or all the wealth and opportunity denied to ex-slaves and their descendants across generations. Federal action, national action, United States action on a federal level remains essential. And federal legislation in the United States like HR 40 remains necessary, although we're at an impasse on the federal level. California and local governments must also repair the harms they caused or sustained. State action cannot discharge the federal government's responsibility, however. So even though we have been on an impasse at the federal government trying to get reparations on the federal level, The point is, states within the United States, cities within the United States, counties within the United States are taking it upon themselves to create reparations commissions, to force the question of reparations. So the rest of my remarks will just detail in brief the process that the state of California took upon. First, California needed a clear legal mandate to create the California Reparations Task Force. Our California State Legislature charged the Reparations Task Force to examine slavery, its continuing effects, and California's own role in sustaining slavery and its aftermath. We were directed to make findings, propose remedies, identify eligibility, and recommend how reparations could be delivered. That mandate gave the work legitimacy and made California's responsibility a central part of the inquiry. Second, California needed a full evidence-based account of the harm. So we needed the legal mandate, we needed our legislature to say, yes, we need a reparations task force. But then once the reparations task force was commissioned, the task force had to come up with the evidence-based account of harm. And that's where we created our 1,000-page final report. It actually exceeded a thousand pages. This 1,000-plus page final report traces a through line from slavery to white supremacist terror, political disenfranchisement, housing segregation, unequal education, environmental racism, over-policing, mass incarceration, health disparities, labor discrimination, and the destruction and devaluation of Black businesses and communities. We made the point that these harms are not disparate. They did not arise separately. Together, they denied Black American people safety, political power, wealth, opportunity, and health, still to this day. Third, descendants and other people most affected must shape the process and the remedies. The task force held public hearings over the course of two years, and we received testimony from direct descendants, from descendants of slaves, from rights holders, from victims of racism and discrimination. We also heard from advocates and scholars and Californians across the state. Their testimony helped identify what repair must address. The main point is descendants, right, direct victims, rights holders, they must, as my esteemed panelist said in the beginning of our remarks, they must define the harms, design the remedies, and oversee implementation. So it's not enough for civil society organizations to dictate what repair looks like. You have to bring the rights holders in the room. They have to be leading the conversation and overseeing any implementation of reparations measures. Fourth, reparations needs a full framework with direct compensation at its center. We use the five forms of reparations recognized in international law to organize our task force report, right? As mentioned, restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition. Restitution can return land or property, compensation can address measurable losses, Rehabilitation can include free health care and other services, free education. Satisfaction includes acknowledgment and public truth-telling. Guarantees of non-repetition require institutions to fundamentally change. These remedies can work together. One must not be used to avoid another. And direct cash compensation is absolutely essential as well. Fifth, Economic analysis must connect government conduct to measurable losses. And so the California Reparations Task Force, I don't think anyone on the nine members of the task force, we weren't economists. But we wanted to take the idea of compensation seriously. So we hired economists. We hired 5 economists to examine specific harms. Our economists actually estimated, for instance, in California, the idea of redlining, right, facilitated by California contributed to an average per capita home ownership wealth loss of over $161,000 for Black Californians in 2020 dollars. This measures only one harm that our economists measured. not the total debt. And so the point of this, point is no calculation can capture generations of stolen labor, land, opportunity, family separation, and life. But we did use the economic evidence that we could compile to make the case for repair and not to reduce human suffering to a number. Our experience also offers clear lessons for implementation. first define who each remedy is for and the injury it addresses. California, we recommended something called lineage-based remedies, specifically for descendants of people enslaved in the United States and free Black people who lived in California before the end of the 19th century. These remedies address specific harms tied to slavery and its aftermath. But separately, the task force also recommended broader race-based remedies to address continuing anti-Black discrimination that affects Black people, whether or not they're descended of slaves. Both approaches are necessary, but they address distinct injuries and should not be treated as substitutes for one another. Second, a report must lead to action, funding, and accountability. So it's not enough to just issue a final report. We actually, as a task force, recommended the state of California create a new state agency, an independent agency, called the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency to carry our work forward. Its name, the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency, actually recalls the National Freedmen's Bureau that once existed right after slavery in the United States, but was dismantled after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. That National Freedmen's Bureau supported schools and other services for ex-slaves during Reconstruction. And so that California's proposed agency needs authority, it needs staff, it needs resources, timelines, and descendant participation to turn recommendations into material repair. Lastly, I'll say California, and you can extrapolate this to other institutions that are serious about reparations, you have to center public education, right, as part of reparations. We have to teach history as part of repair. The state cannot repair what it refuses to teach. Schools should teach what happened, right, about slavery and why repair is justice. Attempts to minimize or erase this history makes honest teaching more urgent. Education complements compensation. It doesn't replace it, however. And the last point I'll raise is California's experience show that state and local action can document harms, design remedies, and build institutions accountable to descendants. We're at this stage now, the task force is over. So now it's up to our California state legislatures to turn our over 120 plus recommendations into actual law. And so now is the time for California to implement our recommendations. States and cities can repair harms they caused and strengthen the case for federal action, but they cannot settle a national injury. Measure progress by whether descendants receive meaningful repair and whether responsible institutions change. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Moore, for reminding us about the action needed at all levels to really enforce this work, but also that UN instruments such as the basic principles can really provide a useful framework for those seeking to engage in reparatory justice work. So now is the time for questions. So we'd like to invite questions from in the room and questions from our audience online, which I think I'm going to be assisted with monitoring. So firstly, in the room, are there any requests for questions? Okay, South Africa.

And thank you for an excellent panel. Yesterday, the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution entitled, "From Rhetoric to Reality: A Global Call for Concrete Action Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance." It is unfortunate that the resolution was not adopted by consensus. The resolution provided a possibility for states to reach out and find common ground on an important imperative to take the discourse on reparations forward through concrete global action. Unfortunately, the states that abstained on the resolution used legal arguments related to intertemporal law. Let us be clear, a state's liability cannot be locked in the past if the injury is ongoing. As we have heard from the panelists today, including the High Commissioner, people of African descent continue to face severe disadvantages in societies as a result of colonialism and slavery. Systemic discrimination and economic underdevelopment remains a continuing wrongful act that began in the past but remains a live legal injury today. It is also difficult to argue that slavery did not go against peremptory norms at that time as well. At a time when those that advocate for racial superiority have become emboldened to spread their inhumane beliefs, the Human Rights Council and all of us as States and civil society needs a common approach to addressing racism and, importantly, the crucial issue of reparatory justice. Thank you.

Thank you. Netherlands?

Moderator, thank you so much to OHCHR for organizing this event and to all the panelists for their very insightful contributions. Thank you also for giving me this opportunity to share with you the process that we as the Netherlands have embarked on. Countries and communities that were once colonized teach us that what happened in the past continues to have an impact today, contributing to deeply rooted patterns of inequality and racism. And the consequences are also felt across the Caribbean parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. And dialogues such as this one today are crucial if we truly want to move forward together. In our own society, we are in a process of confronting the darkest pages of our colonial history and its ongoing impact. And this takes moral leadership and courage. And it was only last weekend that our king received the report of a study that he himself had commissioned into the role of his own family, the royal family, in the colonial history of the Netherlands. Ever since our former Prime Minister Rutte in 2022 issued a formal apology on behalf of the Dutch state to enslaved people and their descendants worldwide, the Dutch government is committed to a wider process within the Kingdom of the Netherlands of recognizing, acknowledging, and addressing past injustices. And we are also engaged in a continuing dialogue with Suriname about our shared past. For us, the apologies are the start of a process, a comma. not a full stop, as our former Prime Minister himself said at the time of the apologies, and which was reiterated by our current Prime Minister, who pledged to continue this process across all parts of the Kingdom. We have also taken several concrete steps in close consultation with communities and descendants, and allow me to name a few. We have set up a fund, 200 million euro fund, to raise awareness of our slavery past, foster engagement, and address the ongoing effects in the present day. We are investing in the setting up of a slavery museum and in education to anchor this part of our history in the curriculum. We have put a policy in place, and it was mentioned before, for the return of cultural heritage. And under this policy, we have returned many objects from Dutch collections to, amongst others, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. We have learned that return is not just about the objects. It is tied to questions of dignity, cultural identity, and equality. We are committed to transforming structures in our own society which are perpetuating injustices of the past in an effort to break with deeply rooted patterns of inequality and racism. And we also recognize in general the need for more representation of African countries in international institutions. The Netherlands is currently co-chair of the intergovernmental negotiations on security sector reform. We also recognize the need for the importance of debt relief. We look forward to hosting the UNESCO Global Forum Against Racism and Discrimination in the Netherlands later this month, bringing together governments and other stakeholders for further dialogue and international cooperation in the fight against racism and discrimination, and engaging in dialogues such as today's as well as taking concrete steps, such as allocating funding for recognition and education, and implementing our policy for the return of cultural artifacts, are part of a larger process within the Kingdom of the Netherlands to acknowledge our shared past. And we hope that this will contribute to continued dialogue and cooperation based on equality and mutual respect. Thanks.

Thank you. France?

Thank you very much, Madam Moderator, and thank you to the High Commissioner's Office and the High Commissioner. Thank you to the panel for this very rich discussion. 21 May, France celebrated 25th anniversary of the law recognizing trafficking and slavery as crime against humanity. This was the fruit of long fight for justice, truth, and dignity. This showed France's attachment to qualify this crime as it is. This marked a decisive step as well in giving this horrible moment of our history its rightful place, showing also underscoring also the resistance to this. I am pleased that we have had this high-level dialogue that brings us together, as well as hearing initiatives from Ghana at the international conference mentioned in June last in Accra. Reparations, you are all saying, is plural. It's mobilized research, culture, education, and international cooperation to nourish our public policy and our dialogue here at the UN and in other international bodies as well. The restitution of cultural belongings also is a concrete translation of this. President Macron recalled this. To continue to repair, we must restore. This is the path that France has chosen. We have also moved to return cultural goods and human remains in a bilateral exchange with Benin, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, and Madagascar. To go further, we have adopted two laws in 2023 and 2026. to allow for the return of human remains and cultural belongings that had been illicitly, illegally appropriated. This establishes a clean framework that is lasting and based on scientific work undertaken jointly. This scientific work will soon reflect respond to requests from these countries. reparations, and you said this, ma'am, is also, it does also involve scientific work that we have decided to launch to working together with Ghana. to be defined in Accra, the first exchange between our scientists and researchers will take place soon. Restoring and restoration cannot recover and respond to the wounds of slavery. It can merely be contribute to restorative justice, seeking to provide tangible response, establishing essential links and transmission, recognizing, restoring, and transmitting are mutually enforcing. This allows for us to work with lucidity, humility, and constancy in order to restore more fair relations of trust. I thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Moderator. Jamaica welcomes this high-level dialogue and thanks the panelists for their contribution, particularly Ambassador Hermans for articulating CARICOM's position in this space.

As we said, Jamaica's filing of its historic petition on the 7th of September reflects for us a simple principle. Where a profound wrong has been committed, responsibility should be acknowledged and meaningful steps taken to repair the harm, including restoration. For Jamaica, reparatory justice is not an abstract debate. My question to the panel How can national and international judicial findings on historical injustices be more effectively linked to multilateral processes and policy frameworks so that legal recognition and clarity, where established, lead to concrete measures and concrete reparatory measures in this regard and tangible improvements in the lives of people of African descent?

Thank you.

Thank you. Just to say, we are monitoring the comments in the chat, and they mainly do relate to what can the UN do and what can states do. So we'll continue to take the interventions from states. So Egypt.

Thank you, Madam Moderator. The Egyptian delegation would like to thank the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the distinguished panelists for their insightful presentations on this pressing and enduring issue. Eradicating racism and racial discrimination in all their forms requires full recognition of the gravity of historical injustices and their lasting consequences, which continue to affect millions of people today. Reparatory justice is not merely about addressing the wrongs of the past. It's equally about confronting the structural inequalities of the present and building a more just and equitable future. Reflecting on today's rich discussions and after the adoption of the historic General Assembly resolution recognizing the trafficking and enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity, the fundamental question before the international community is how to translate these commitments into concrete actions, how to move reparatory justice from rhetoric to reality. and how we could address the wrongdoings of the past while effectively combating emerging and contemporary forms of racism and discrimination, including equitable African representation in global decision-making and norm-setting process, including financial architecture reforms. Finally, we underscore that the urgent need to strengthen accountability, ensure effective remedies and reparations for victims, and take decisive action against all forms of racial discrimination and racism. I thank you.

Thank you. Togo?

Thank you, Madam Moderator. I should like to thank the organizers of this dialogue. I should also like to hail the work of the working group and the permanent body and all of those that have worked to keep alive the calls for truth, memory, and dignity. The message of Togo is simple. The normative framework exists and it's being consolidated. It's time for it to be implemented. This framework, Africa built it. Over time, in 2021, at the initiative of Togo, the African Union declared the 2021-2031 Decade of African Roots and African Diaspora, the decade, that is. Togo holds the coordination for that. In 2025, this proposal from Togo looked at slavery as deportation, colonization, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the people of Africa. On 25 March last, the General Assembly, at the initiative of Ghana and we hailed this in its turn recognized that trafficking of Africans as slavery and racial race-based slavery as the most serious crime against humanity. this it is now time for the stakeholders to act. It is in this spirit that Togo is acting. From London to New York, Geneva, we have contributed to keeping this item of reparations in the center of the multilateral agenda. In Lome in 2025, the Ninth Pan-African Conference established a roadmap based on the recognition of the crimes, on reparations, and this in step with international law, guarantees of non-reoccurrence, and the creation of a Pan-African observatory for reparative justice. Some weeks ago, on 4 September, the General Assembly adopted a resolution entitled "Correcting the Map" brought forth by Togo on behalf of Africa. Why does this map arise in a discussion of reparative justice? Well, it's because memory and dignity also hinge upon the view that we have on the world. And for centuries, our the representation of colonial history has drawn the narrative on the African collective. To correct the map is to correct how we see this in schools, in the media, and institutions. This is symbolic reparation. However, it is also educational. It is lasting. Togo thus calls for an approach that is global and ambitious. when it comes to reparative justice, and that it be based on four demands: the recognition of the crimes, restoring that which was taken, repairing what can be repaired, and more to ensure that these injustices do not reoccur. Allow me, along these lines, to launch four calls. First, to all states. that they implement the resolution, the correct the map resolution, adopting this map with its proper dimensions in schools, in media, and in its administration. Secondly, in the United Nations and in UN bodies, including the High Commissioner's Office, that they show the example in their own publications and in their educational didactic materials. Third, to the concerned states, that they commit without a delay to a spirit of good faith and responsibility to the dialogue called for by the resolution of 25 March. Lastly, a call upon all stakeholders to support the implementation of the Pan-African Observatory for Justice for reparative justice. Togo, for its part, will remain fully committed to correcting how we see these things, to repairing history as well. I thank you. Much obliged. Thank you very much.

In the final 10 minutes, we have four more states, and we need to come back to the panelists. So I can ask everyone to be brief. So the next intervention is from Ghana. Thank you.

Madam moderator, for giving me the floor. Excellencies, distinguished speakers, ladies and gentlemen. Ghana welcomes this dialogue and thanks the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for convening it. Under President John Dramani Mahama's leadership, Ghana led the effort securing General Assembly Resolution 8250 on the trafficking and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans. We are deeply grateful to the African Union, CARICOM, and all partners for this recognition. Ghana subsequently, as referenced by most of the speakers, hosted the Accra Next Steps Conference to advance practical measures of redress. The conference outcome document, the Accra Next Steps Commitment, together with High-Level Advisory Council on Reparatory Justice, the Global Experts Panel on Restitution of Cultural Heritage, and the Global Legal Panel, provides an important framework and institutional arrangement to help implement Resolution 80/250. These efforts reflect our conviction that international recognition must lead to meaningful repair. For Ghana, reparatory justice means addressing historical wrongs and their continuing consequences, systemic racism, economic marginalization, and structural inequality. It encompasses restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, acknowledgment, and guarantees of non-repetition. with Africans and people of African descent meaningfully shaping these measures. This dialogue should help turn growing international engagement into concrete commitments and measurable outcomes. Ghana stands ready to work with all partners to turn recognition into reparations and build a more equitable international order. I thank you.

Thank you. OIC.

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, OIC, welcomes this important dialogue and reaffirms its commitment to justice, equality, human dignity, and the elimination of racial discrimination. The OIC recognizes the profound and lasting consequences of slavery, colonialism, and historical injustices suffered by African and people of African descent. We emphasize that reparatory justice requires not only acknowledgment of historical wrongs but also meaningful international cooperation to address structural inequalities, promote accountability, and ensure effective remedies. The OIC supports the principles of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action and appreciates the African Union efforts to advance reparatory justice. We call for strengthened international solidarity, inclusive dialogue, and practical measures to achieve lasting justice and equality. The OIC remains committed to supporting these collective efforts. I thank you.

Thank you. Gambia.

Thank you, Madam Moderator. The Gambia thanks the High Commissioner on OHCHR for convening this very important dialogue. We also thank and appreciate the panel's insightful contributions. For the Gambia, the smiling coast of Africa, the history we are discussing is preserved along the banks of our river. Kunta Kinte Island and related sites bear witness to the trafficking of enslaved Africans. the separation of families, and the loss of freedom and dignity. They also preserve the memory of resilience and resistance. The Gambia has long engaged in the pursuit of reparatory justice. In July 2016, we hosted an international colloquium on slavery, the slave trade, and colonization to consider recognition, restitution, and reparations. Our co-sponsorship and support for General Assembly Resolution 80/250 reflects that longstanding engagement and our conviction that acknowledgment of historical wrongs must lead to meaningful repair. The Durban Declaration and Program of Action remains a fundamental reference. We also welcome the adoption of CERD's General Recommendation number 40 on reparatory justice for historical harms and their continuing consequences. Madam Moderator, The Gambia would emphasize three priorities. First, affected communities must help shape reparatory measures. Their experiences and aspirations, including those of our women, our young people, and the diaspora, must guide our response. And second, reparatory justice must be comprehensive. Compensation should remain part of the discussion, alongside acknowledgment and apology, cultural restitution, access to archives, rehabilitation, and education. Measures must also address continuing racial discrimination and inequality. Development assistance, I submit, cannot substitute for responsibility and repair. Third, commitments must translate into action, supported by adequate resources, clear responsibilities, and transparent reporting. The Gambia supports stronger cooperation between the African Union, CARICOM, and United Nations mechanisms. We encourage practical support for historical research, community consultations, and the preservation of our shared heritage. We owe it to those whose lives were taken or profoundly altered to ensure that their history is acknowledged and that its continuing consequences are addressed with seriousness and resolve. With this backdrop, let me advance short questions to the panel. Who speaks for the affected communities? The statement that I just delivered calls for affected communities, including women, young people, and the diaspora, to shape reparatory measures. Who should decide which communities count as affected? And how should the claims of Africans on the continent be weighted against those of the diaspora when the two disagree? What process and what role for the African Union and CARICOM would give those communities a real say. The second question to the panel is, does compensation sit inside the framework? And what about the development aid? The 2005 basic principles on the right to a remedy and reparation list restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition. Some states argue that this cannot be applied to harms that predate the modern human rights framework and that development assistance meets the obligation. How does the panel answer both points? Which element of the basic principles should states accept as applicable to historical harms? And how can the dialogue prevent aid from being counted as repair? Lastly, how will the dialogue that we've just had today be followed up and resourced, ideally submitted. Thank you.

Thank you. We have an extra 10 minutes of the interpreters' time, so thank you to them. And let's keep the final interventions very, very brief. So Barbados.

Thank you, Madam Moderator. Barbados wishes to extend a sincere thanks to the team that presented today and to simply say that it was a pleasure in hosting the third CARICOM regional conference on reparations last month. We underscore the importance of solidarity between Africa, the Caribbean, and the wider diaspora, and reaffirms our commitment to the revised CARICOM 10-point plan for reparatory justice. Barbados has consistently emphasized reparatory justice is not a request for charity, but a call for justice, dignity, and meaningful repair. To add, Barbados recognizes that genuine repair must extend beyond financial compensation to include investment in education, health, cultural restoration, economic opportunity, and reform. Madam moderator, to close, the true measure of reparatory justice will not be how we acknowledge the wrongs of yesterday, but how decisively we remove the inequities that they create for generations of tomorrow. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Palestine.

Madam moderator, allow me first to reaffirm Palestine's unwavering solidarity with Africans and people of African descent in their pursuit for justice, dignity, and equality. Reparatory justice is not an act of charity or goodwill. It's a matter of justice, accountability, and effective remedy for the enduring consequences of slavery and colonialism. Political commitments toward concrete action, including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, and guarantees of non-repetition. The legacies of colonialism cannot be confined to history while their consequences continue to shape the present. The Palestinian struggle reminds us that justice must be universal and that historical injustices cannot be addressed while contemporary forms of racial discrimination and colonial oppression are tolerated. Justice delayed must not become justice denied. Thank you.

Thank you. So we're going to have a very brief word from each of our panelists and then close. So thank you and apologies for going slightly over time, but I hope you've enjoyed the conversation and found it interesting. So Camilla, over to you.

Yes, I'll try to be as responsive as possible to all the comments and the questions in the room. Thank you again to all the states that have participated. So I do not see my state in the room, which is the United States. Well, first I would just say, I think for the states in the room, I think it's imperative to investigate, continue to investigate and interrogate your own state's history as it relates to Africans and people of African descent, as it relates to slavery and anti-Black discrimination, to the extent that it exists. And so... essentially, I implore states to, after investigating and interrogating your own state's history as it relates to people of African descent and Africans, for you to further commit yourselves to reparatory justice. So more practically speaking, right, we know the United States and European nations, has a clear history as it relates to slavery and discrimination against Africans and people of African descent, right? So that means, and those clear examples, states put pressure on the necessary actors in your individual states to establish permanent programs, reparatory justice programs with legal authority, dedicated resources, public deadlines, and descendant oversight. Similar programs to like the California Reparations Task Force, for instance. There may be some states in here that don't have that clear of a history as it relates to you know, slavery or anti-Black discrimination. And if that is your state, that doesn't mean that you can sit on the sideline. You can still help. Particularly, you can still help descendants of enslaved Africans who are in the United States, who are in Brazil, who are in Colombia, right? We are a captured group, right? We are still living in the countries that enslaved us without political power. You all can utilize your state's power to speak up for us. And I want to also make that comment more pointedly to the African nations in the room. Malcolm X, the late Malcolm X, before he was assassinated, that's what he was pushing for. He realized that African Americans, we didn't have a seat at the UN. We had to rely on, you know, others to represent us. They would never represent us. Still to this day, they aren't even in the room. And so that means we need African nations to help speak up for your people, for people of African descent. Utilize the resources that you all have in terms of being a nation state to help people of African descent achieve the repair that they so deserve. Thank you.

Thank you, Camilla. Sueli.

I think of all of the principles of reparatory justice, I think the most important thing at the moment is the guarantee of non-repetition. Here we have the extreme right on the rise everywhere. And we might see new multiple holocausts. So we have to recognize this threat to all of our rights, the rights of women, of black people, of LGBTI populations. This frightening deconstitutionalization of rights taking place, and the priority at this time is to guarantee the democratic environment, which is crucial so that our agendas can prosper. And therefore, I think we need to rise to that challenge.

Obrigada, Sueli. Almaz, just one minute, please.

I want states leaving this room today who are still challenging the notion of reparatory justice to start understanding and viewing reparatory justice as an intrinsic mechanism to provide racial justice. The annually tabled UN Human Rights resolution on systemic racism demonstrates that interlinked nature of combating racism and the need for reparatory justice. Reparatory justice is not some outrageous demand from affected communities; it is about providing and remedies to address today's systemic racial harms that are rooted in historic legacies. Reparatory justice processes have to directly engage those wronged and truly hear and involve them to ensure that outcomes will effectively and holistically right all wrongs. Processes should not be based on what states owing reparations are willing to provide or how they imagine a process to look like. They should listen to those impacted and show political willingness to genuinely engage.

Thank you, Alma. Sorry, sorry, we have to finish there. Ambassador Hermans?

We are well beyond the point where historical facts are unknown. The challenge today is not awareness, but action. It is necessary to follow with broadband acknowledgement and apology, which should be the precursor for a strategy structured by both those who have been harmed and those who are required to bring repair. The revised CARICOM 10-point plan provides a practical roadmap, formal acknowledgement and apology, investment in education and public health, cultural restitution, support for indigenous peoples, psychological rehabilitation, Technology transfer and partnerships, that's advanced sustainable development. For states, that means working with affected communities to develop programs that address enduring developmental gaps. For universities, museums, and faith-based institutions, it may mean expanding scholarships, supporting research, improving access to archives, and returning cultural property. For businesses and financial institutions, It means moving beyond statements and toward tangible initiatives that bring changes to how development is financed, build capacity, support entrepreneurship, and create opportunity. The question is no longer whether action is possible. It is whether we are prepared to act and to do so at a scale that requires, that justice requires. Thank you.

Thank you, Ambassador. And Ambassador Al-Juwaili.

Thank you very much, Madam Moderator. Allow me to interact with the questions that were raised in a telegraphic mode. For the distinguished representative of South Africa, if the reliance is on intertemporal law, the foundations of African law is that a crime does not rot, and we have published a number of papers in this regard. The enduring consequences means that those crimes must be accounted for now and never repeated in the future. For the distinguished representative of the Netherlands, thank you for citing all those different examples. We'll be happy to hear more from UN, from the African Union, and to see how this can be further integrated into a reparative justice program. Thank you, representative of.

France, for your examples. We'll be in touch with your mission, and we are looking forward to interacting and obtaining that information.

Distinguished representative of Jamaica, one question about how to bring this into the multilateral fora and the African and Caribbean positions is basically by also hosting and convening such forums such as the UN Permanent Forum in Addis next year, and we hope that by this we embed the agenda into it. Distinguished representative of Egypt, indeed the global decision-making and the participation of Africa in it is not only inadequate, as was mentioned, but as the African leaders call it, is one of the historical injustices. The current global system and its frameworks were created when most of Africa was under colonial rule, and the position and the placement of Africa must be addressed in this regard.

As regards Togo, we recognize the leading role of Togo through the Pan-African Congress, and We recognize the contribution, and as you mentioned this, the Resolution 307.

Ghana, President John Mahama is our leader in this regard, and we stand by his guidance and custodianship, and we remain, of course, committed to supporting all his efforts. To the OIC representative, the African Union, as cooperating with CARICOM, is open for all international organizations, OIC being one of them, and we'd be happy to continue that dialogue further. The distinguished representative of Gambia, you have led also this campaign earlier, and I would like to say that we were working with your institutions to commemorate the roots at 50. You would have remembered if you watched the TV edition 50 years ago exactly from today, and how that shaped also our perception and thinking of the whole return movement. To the distinguished representative of Barbados, of course, specific measures on education, health, economic opportunity, and reform are what translate that into a better life and a better state for the peoples of Africa and people of African descent. Finally, to the distinguished representative of Palestine, I was actually in the room for the fifth edition of the UN Permanent Forum when your representatives got a standing ovation from the Africans. What does that mean? It means that justice for Africans and for people of African descent is simply, simply justice for humanity. It's about a better world for tomorrow from the very unfortunate world that we lived in yesterday. I thank you, Madam Moderator.

Thank you, Ambassador, and thank you, everyone. I'm going to hand back to Dimitri Shalov, the Chief Equality and Non-Discrimination Branch.

Just a word of thanks to our moderator, our distinguished panelists. Thank you for being here. To all of you who have contributed to this debate in this room and also online, to my colleagues who organized this event, and also we recognize that there were many questions online. We take note of them, and we will look carefully into this. This event shows that there is a growing momentum towards reparatory justice and also demonstrates the work that lies ahead of us. Thank you.