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For generations, the victims of slavery, colonial exploitation and other forms of historical injustice have been told to wait.
Wait for acknowledgement. Wait for dialogue. Wait for consensus. Wait for the right political moment. And that waiting has been for eternity– it has been postponed for far too long!
As world leaders gather in New York for the 2026 United Nations General Assembly, the question is no longer whether the historical wrongs suffered by Africans and people of African descent should be acknowledged. The United Nations has already taken a significant step.
On March 25, 2026, the General Assembly adopted a Ghana-led resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans the “gravest crime against humanity”. The resolution received 123 votes in favour, three against and 52 abstentions. Though that vote was an important and historic vote, it needed to go beyond recognition to redress. It didn’t!
The message to UNGA 2026 should therefore be blunt: Do not give us another beautifully worded declaration and ask us to wait another generation. Reparatory justice cannot remain a diplomatic ritual in which leaders express regret, acknowledge suffering and return home without confronting the material consequences of history. This is not about reopening history; it is about refusing to leave history unfinished.
The transatlantic trafficking and enslavement of Africans was not merely a moral tragedy. It was an economic and political system that extracted labour, wealth and human potential on an industrial scale. Its consequences did not disappear when slavery was abolished. They were carried into colonialism and, in different forms, into the unequal structures of the modern international economy.
That is why reparatory justice cannot be reduced to a cheque. It encompasses truth, restitution, compensation where appropriate, rehabilitation, institutional reform, cultural recovery, development and guarantees that systems of racial domination are not reproduced in new forms.
The language is already moving in that direction. The March resolution recognised not only the enormity of enslavement but also its enduring consequences. The challenge now is to give that recognition institutional teeth.
This is where the Global South’s growing diplomatic weight becomes consequential. For decades, its voices were often fragmented. Today, African and Caribbean states have an opportunity to translate their numerical strength at the General Assembly into coordinated diplomatic, legal and negotiating capacity. The African Union’s decision to make 2026–2036 the Decade of Reparations provides an additional framework for moving the issue beyond episodic declarations.
But political momentum without an architecture for delivery risks producing yet another cycle of promises. What is required is a durable international mechanism capable of gathering evidence, preserving archives, documenting claims, assessing continuing harm, developing legal positions and facilitating negotiations. Victims and affected communities must have a central place in that process.
The experience of the Marshall Islands offers a sobering warning. Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 known nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. The consequences have included displacement, environmental damage, health effects and cultural loss. Marshallese representatives have repeatedly stressed that incomplete records and unresolved questions of accountability continue to obstruct justice.
A 2026 UN analysis has highlighted how fragmented historical, environmental and health records can themselves become an obstacle to justice. It calls for stronger Marshallese control over evidence and a sustained, nationally led framework for remediation and recovery.
The lesson extends far beyond the Pacific. Justice delayed does not automatically become justice secured. Evidence disappears. Archives remain inaccessible. Witnesses die. Political priorities change. Victims age. Every delay shifts the burden of proving yesterday’s crimes onto today’s descendants.
That is why UNGA 2026 carries such significance. The debate should move from whether reparations are justified to the practical questions of how historical harm is documented, who bears responsibility, what forms of redress are appropriate and how progress is measured.
There should be no apology for asking those questions. Nor should African and Caribbean countries be required to make their case as though the descendants of victims are petitioners seeking a favour from the descendants of beneficiaries. Reparatory justice is not charity–it is about accountability.
As Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has argued, the consequences of history continue to shape development prospects, debt burdens, climate vulnerability, cultural loss and missed opportunities. The past therefore remains present—not as an abstract memory, but as part of the conditions under which millions live today.
The March vote created an opening. UNGA 2026 can determine whether that opening becomes another chapter in the history of diplomatic declarations or the beginning of a sustained system for reparatory justice.
The victims have waited long enough. They do not need another lesson in diplomatic niceties. They need truth preserved, evidence assembled, responsibility confronted and redress negotiated.
The world has acknowledged the crime. The next question is whether it is prepared to confront its consequences! Let 2026 be remembered not as the year the United Nations found new words for an old injustice, but as the year those words began to acquire the machinery of justice.
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