The Algiers Declaration outlines a framework that includes four critical pillars of accountability:
- Codification of colonial crimes within international legal instruments, calling on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights to recognise these acts as crimes against humanity with no statute of limitations.
- Ecological reparations, specifically highlighting the long-term environmental devastation caused by resource extractivism and unconventional weapon testing — most notably the French nuclear trials in the Algerian Sahara.
- Unconditional restitution of Africa’s cultural and tangible heritage, ensuring that stolen history is returned to its rightful soil.
- A continental economic audit to calculate the staggering cost of centuries of resource plunder.
By unifying these disparate issues into a single diplomatic platform, the AU signals that justice will no longer be negotiated on European terms, but calculated based on the full scope of the African experience.
This unified African stance stands in stark contrast to Europe’s fragmented posture.
While the European Parliament adopted a resolution in 2019 acknowledging colonial crimes, nearly six years have passed with no concrete action.
By failing to translate rhetoric into policy, the EU has left a vacuum that the Algiers Declaration now fills.
