Ghana to advance reparatory justice at first major gathering since landmark UN resolution

Heads of state and participants from more than 80 countries at three-day event in Accra to pursue actionable commitments to reconciliation and restitution

Ghana is hosting a conference to advance the continent’s push for reparatory justice after the adoption of the landmark United Nations (UN) resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.

Heads of state and government, ministers, civil society representatives, historians, researchers and legal experts representing more than 80 countries are converging in the capital, Accra, for the three-day event, billed Next Steps , which starts on Wednesday. It is the first major gathering on the issue since the resolution was adopted .

The conference will feature an event on 19 June at Osu Castle - a 17th-century fortress in the capital built by the Danish that served as a hub for the transatlantic slave trade - to honour Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery in the US.

Expected speakers include the African Union commission chair, Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, prime minister Mia Mottley of Barbados and presidents John Mahama, Joseph Boakai, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Emmanuel Macron of Ghana, Liberia, Namibia, Senegal and France, respectively.

Participants are engaging in dialogue around five objectives – including formulating a framework to advance the resolution’s objectives globally and establishing global panels on reparatory justice and restitution – to “transform political momentum into a common concrete institutional commitment for reparatory justice”, organisers say .

The conference comes nearly three months after the UN general assembly voted to adopt a proposal by Ghana on behalf of AU member states to recognise the trafficking of enslaved Africans and the racialised chattel enslavement of people from the continent as the gravest crime against humanity.

A total of 123 states voted in favour of the proposal while three – the US, Israel and Argentina – voted against it and 52, including the UK and all EU member states, abstained.