This initiative underscores the AU’s commitment to addressing historical injustices, including the trans-Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, apartheid, and genocide. It builds on decades of advocacy and collaboration, aiming to foster unity and establish mechanisms for reparatory justice on a global scale.
In its Declaration, the AU acknowledges the appalling tragedies of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance, including slavery and the transatlantic slave trade.
The organisation emphasizes the need for victims of these human rights violations to have access to justice, legal assistance, and effective protection and remedies.
The Concept Note on the AU theme of the year for 2025 mentions is ‘fully endorsing the ongoing processes in Africa which are aimed at the full restitution of stolen African cultural, religious artefacts, bodies and body parts’.
Following the AU Summit in February 2023, a High-Level delegation of the AU conducted a study tour to the Republic of Barbados, aiming to develop stronger AU-CARICOM cooperation in advancing the agenda on reparations and racial healing.
The Accra Reparations Conference (ARC) was convened in November 2023, bringing together various stakeholders to advance the cause of reparations, including reparatory justice and healing for Africans and people of African descent.
The current AU plans are comparable with the CARICOM Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice, developed in 2014.
