AU ‘Year of Reparations’ should look to the future and the past
Reparations aim to repair relationships and prevent violence – a forward-looking approach could foster a more just global order.
Published on 27 February 2025 in
ISS Today
By
The African Union’s (AU) 2025 theme – Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations – has revived discussions initiated over 30 years ago in the Abuja Proclamation and revitalised in the Accra Proclamation (2023) and its Declaration.
An implementation roadmap will mainstream this year’s theme at continental and global levels. Through engagement with African countries, civil society organisations and other AU organs, the roadmap prioritises establishing a unit to provide technical and policy support and coordinate implementation.
The goal is to develop a common African position to help galvanise countries’ political will. Individual states may hesitate to engage in unilateral reparations advocacy – beyond seeking restitution of stolen artefacts – due to asymmetric power dynamics and economic dependencies on the West.
The AU’s revival of the issue presents an opportunity to collectively define what reparations truly mean and establish its scope by involving ‘the sixth region’ (the African diaspora), the Caribbean Community and African Americans. The exercise must promote a balanced perspective of harm and blame.
Regarding harm, Africans and people of African descent hold diverse and sometimes varying positions. Historical accountability must be acknowledged while addressing contemporary realities, ensuring neither that Africa shifts all blame to the West, nor the West downplays the lasting impact of historical injustices.
Some critics in Europe and North America dismiss Africa’s reparations agenda as backward-looking
Defining a common position and forging a united front is however just one piece of the puzzle. The AU’s reparations initiative has already faced – and will continue to face – deeply entrenched resistance.
Many former colonial powers argue that they bear no direct responsibility for injustices committed centuries ago, dismissing reparations claims as impractical or backward-looking. Others contend that development aid, debt relief and foreign investment function as reparations, negating the need for further redress.
This challenge is further exacerbated by Africa’s lack of leverage in compelling former colonial powers to engage in meaningful reparations. Unlike other groups that have secured reparations – such as Jewish Holocaust survivors or Japanese Americans – African countries lack the political, economic or institutional influence to pressure former colonial powers into the conversation.
One way to address these challenges is by expanding the AU theme’s focus, which currently emphasises justice and healing for Africans and Afro-descendants. During implementation, the AU could approach reparations as a forward-looking global agenda aimed at repairing both victims and perpetrators.
In doing so, the AU could build on traditional African conceptions of justice embedded in its transitional justice and post-conflict reconstruction and development policies, where reparation is inherently forward-looking. This is further reinforced by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent’s recommendations and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights resolutions.
Such reframing would respond to critics in Europe and North America who dismiss Africa’s reparations agenda as backward-looking, assuming that violence ended with the abolition of the slave trade and colonialism. The reality is that violence has evolved into systemic injustices that continue to shape global inequalities, including representation in multilateral institutions.
The AU could approach reparations as a forward-looking global agenda aimed at repairing victims and perpetrators
Moreover, reparations are by definition not solely about the past – they also repair fractured relationships and prevent the recurrence of violence. A forward-looking approach would foster a more just international order, where historical wrongs are actively remedied. Calls for reforming the global multilateral system, such as those reflected in the Pact for the Future, could be seen as intrinsically linked to reparations.
Most importantly – as traditionally understood in many African societies and reinforced by the AU roadmap’s links with transitional justice – reparations are never just about the victims. They are also about perpetrators. Former colonial powers that profited from Africa’s suffering carry unresolved moral wounds.
Societies built on slavery and colonial exploitation continue to grapple with racism, economic inequality and historical amnesia. Reparative justice offers these nations an opportunity to heal, confront their pasts, and rebuild relationships with African and Afro-descendants.
Another way to elevate the global reparations conversation is by shifting the focus from crimes against Africa to crimes against humanity. The atrocities committed – including genocide, forced removals, the looting of resources and cultural artefacts, numerous war crimes and slavery – were not only crimes against Africa but crimes against humanity as a whole.
This framing is already used in UN resolutions and regional and international instruments. Since the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, the European Union has acknowledged – albeit without an apology – slavery and colonialism as crimes against humanity. And the AU has just considered a proposal on the qualification of slavery, deportation and colonisation as crimes against humanity and genocide, to help advance the reparation cause.
This approach aligns with universal legal and moral principles that recognise these crimes as violations that shock the conscience of humanity. From a legal standpoint, this could reinforce the AU’s plan to seek an International Court of Justice advisory opinion. It could also be used to appeal to Western audiences to leverage universal moral outrage – an outrage that Africa and people of African descent have carried for generations, often with minimal global acknowledgement.
Societies built on slavery and exploitation still grapple with racism, economic inequality and historical amnesia
History shows that moral outrage can be transformative. Experts at an Institute for Peace and Security Studies side event during the February AU summit noted that the global anti-apartheid movement pressured Western governments to impose sanctions on South Africa – not through economic coercion, but sustained moral pressure and activism. Similar approaches in recent years have led to the restitution of stolen African cultural artefacts.
However, moral outrage alone is insufficient. It must be channelled to shape international discourse, pressure governments and shift public opinion. Achieving this amid global crises and uncertainty requires sustained, collaborative efforts from the AU and stakeholders identified in the roadmap. Engaging former colonial powers and institutions is also crucial.
Ultimately, the moral case for reparations must be reinforced with a plan to consolidate fragmented research on the harm sustained by Africa and people of African descent. This must be complemented by strategic advocacy, legal action and economic empowerment to achieve meaningful reparative justice – framed not merely as a financial claim but as a moral and political imperative.
For the AU and Africa, the 2025 ‘Year of Reparations’ is just the beginning. The real challenge is ensuring that the movement gains global recognition and remains a priority beyond this year, ultimately evolving into the ‘AU Decade of Reparations’ as envisioned in the roadmap.
The movement will be more sustainable if reparative justice is framed not only as a response to Africa’s past but also as a foundation for shaping the world’s future.
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