General Recommendations on Reparations
Introduction
Anti-Black racism[1] stems in large part from racism engrained in the legacies of slavery, the slave trade and colonialism. The Transatlantic Slave Trade was one of the largest forced migrations in human history. Western Europeans and others trafficked Africans from their homelands to enslave them in their new colonies in Africa, and the Americas, as well as in Asia, borne from a desire for land expansion, financial enrichment, and control. The cost of this greed was an enormous human toll–millions of lives lost from horrendous transportation conditions, disease, and abuse.
This cruelty was made possible and sustained through the ideological and legal entrenchment of the dehumanization of Black people.[2] Colonization, anti-Blackness, and white supremacy all distinctively and concurrently constructed contemporary notions of “race” and racism. Anti-Blackness became widespread and ultimately codified throughout the colonies. Laws prohibiting Black people from reading, property ownership, and marriage were created during colonization and slavery, but the entanglement of racism and law persisted long after.
Despite the vast impacts that these legacies have had on people, there continues to be little acknowledgment by states that benefitted from them. These injustices should be acknowledged by those who perpetrated them, as they have affected people for centuries and continue to affect them. These historic wrongs have real and tangible impacts on their daily lives today. Racial inequality, inequity and discrimination are direct results of these historic legacies. Whether it is African Americans in the United States today, who have to fear being shot by the police, or Africans in the so-called formerly colonized world who are struggling to survive because their indigenous land was never returned to them post-colonialization.
Despite gaining political independence, former colonies on the African continent continue to face deep economic imbalances in global trade agreements. These agreements often favor wealthier nations and multinational corporations, leaving African states in a perpetual underdog position. Critical minerals essential for the just energy transition are extracted from African soil, yet the profits largely flow out rather than benefiting local economies. Similarly, agricultural products like coffee and cacao, which fuel billion-dollar industries, are exported as raw materials while African farmers receive minimal compensation. This exploitation perpetuates economic dependency, hinders African peoples’ right to development, while undermining the ability of African states to comply with their obligations under the ICESCR to respect, protect and fulfil the economic and social rights protected in that Covenant.
The racialization[3] of Black people is entrenched in the mindsets that established the colonial world order, which considered colonized people and what they offer to the world as inferior to the people of the colonizer. Even though there is no scientific basis for “race,” this mindset of Black inferiority has persisted in the countries that benefitted from enslavement and colonialism even post-colonization. There is therefore a correlation between racial stereotypes and myths derived from these legacies and contemporary anti-Black racism.
Many governments that benefitted from colonialism, enslavement and the slave trade have yet to and in most cases refuse to genuinely reckon with past and current impacts of these legacies.
Formal apologies are not enough on their own
As part of the continued resistance to acknowledge the systemic nature of anti-Black racism, many concerned states also continue to deny the existence of a duty under international law to provide reparations for these historic, and in many cases, ongoing abuses.[4]
Concerned states have tried to avoid legal responsibility by arguing that the policies that enabled slavery and colonial crimes were not prohibited under domestic or international law at the time of their respective commission and that there was accordingly no violation of law that would give rise to a corresponding legal duty to make reparation–they refer to what is called the “intertemporal principle.” Numerous independent UN rights experts have challenged its application in the context of reparations that seek to address historic legacies.
This submission will not directly address the intertemporal principle at this time and instead focus on the deep-rooted and persistent nature of anti-Black racism in transatlantic chattel enslavement and colonialism, which Human Rights Watch argues is one of the causes of ongoing human rights violations, therefore giving rise to a right to reparations for affected communities.
Human Rights Watch calls for accountability of all serious human rights abuses, even if their impacts today are rooted in historic wrongs. Any arguments that attempt to excuse atrocities including crimes against humanity or genocide based on arguments that the acts were legal at the time sets up a system of accountability that guarantees impunity for egregious rights abuses–which in many cases affected Black people.
In the past decades, a few governments have issued formal apologies for historic wrongs. Human Rights Watch would like to stress that formal apologies are just a first step toward acknowledgment of wrongs, i.e. they can start out a process that seeks to right the historic wrongs. Acknowledgement needs to be followed by accountability and redress as next steps.
Moreover, reparatory processes need to be embedded in meaningful consultations of all communities who were affected by these wrongs to ensure a genuine and holistic reckoning process that seeks to address past and present impacts and where communities have a say in the outcome.
A formal apology, as a standalone action to address historic wrongs, detached from full reparations that are based on prior effective consultations with all affected communities, will fall short of the standards underlying the right to remedy or reparations for serious human rights abuses.
Two reparations cases that illustrate anti-Black racism as an underlying root cause
Human Rights Watch will illustrate in two reparations cases how Black people affected by historic wrongs engrained in anti-Black racism are still struggling for justice and reparations after decades. Both the United States and United Kingdom have ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), which requires states parties to eliminate racial discrimination and assure access to justice and the right to seek just and adequate reparation or satisfaction for any damaged suffered as a result of racial discrimination. As the historic crimes manifest in contemporary forms of racial discrimination, governments have a duty to repair and eliminate the enduring impacts they cause. However, as both cases demonstrate, each government is shying away from acknowledging a legal duty to repair, which would be an acknowledgement of the enduring impacts that affect communities to this day and the need for more than words.
The case for reparations for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre – “Black Wall Street”
What happened and who was affected?
The Tulsa Race Massacre was a two-day long massacre that took place between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when groups of white residents, in total approximately 10,000, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the predominantly Black Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence against Black people in the US.
The white mobs drove through neighborhood shooting and killing Black people, looting and burning their homes and businesses. Many Black residents fought back, but they were greatly outnumbered and outgunned. Many fled, while thousands were taken prisoner by the mob. Reports indicate that some police actively participated in the violence and looting.
The mob destroyed 35 square blocks of Greenwood, burning down over 1,200 homes, over 60 businesses, a school, a hospital, a public library, and a dozen churches. Many of the homes that did not burn were looted. Some estimates put the death toll at 300, but the number may be much higher.
Tulsa police made no effort to de-escalate the situation or disperse the crowd. It did nothing to prevent the violence and stood still while Black people were massacred. At the time, the neighborhood was one of the wealthiest Black communities in the United States, locally known as “Black Wall Street.”
The Tulsa City Commission issued a report two weeks after falsely blaming the Black residents for the violence.
Still fighting for justice and reparations
Over 100 years later and Greenwood residents have yet to see justice.
In 2021, the last three survivors of the massacre filed a lawsuit requesting reparations for the damage caused by the mob violence. In October 2023, one of the survivors, Hughes Van Ellis, passed away at the age of 102. In November of 2024, the highest state court in Oklahoma dismissed their lawsuit after years of tumultuous litigation. That same month, the oldest survivor, Lessie Benningfield “Mother” Randle turned 110 years old.
On January 10, 2025, the Department of Justice published an investigative report finding that violence was caused by a white mob in reaction to an unfounded allegation, and that the police aided in the attack. While this provided some form of acknowledgment of racial violence, the Department found no further legal recourse for justice or reparations, leaving the communities without a path forward to justice.
The case for reparations for the Chagossian people – UK’s last colony in Africa
What happened and who was affected?
About 60 years ago, the United Kingdom government secretly planned, with the United States, to force an entire Indigenous people, the Chagossians, from their homes in the Chagos Archipelago. The Indian Ocean islands were part of Mauritius, then a UK colony. The two governments agreed that a US military base would be built on Diego Garcia, the largest of the inhabited Chagos islands, and the island’s inhabitants would be removed. The UK government split the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius,[5] creating a new colony in Africa, the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). To avoid having to report to the United Nations about its continued colonial rule, the UK falsely declared that Chagos had no permanent population.
The reality was that a community had lived on Chagos for centuries. The Chagossians are predominately descendants of enslaved people forcibly brought from the African continent and Madagascar to the then-uninhabited Chagos islands where they worked on coconut plantations under French and British rule, and of South Asian indentured servants.
The UK and US governments treated them as a people without rights and forcibly displaced them from their homeland–without consultation or compensation–between 1965 and 1973 and abandoned them in Mauritius and the Seychelles to make way for a military base. The UK has tried to treat Chagos as a territory where international human rights law does not apply. And the US has continued to benefit from the operation of its geopolitically strategic military base on Diego Garcia, while refusing to take responsibility for the crimes against the Chagossians.
A 2023 Human Rights Watch report found that actions by the governments amounted to three ongoing crimes against humanity committed against the Chagossian people, including their persecution on the grounds of race and ethnicity. Human Rights Watch found that these ongoing colonial crimes are based on systematic racism and ethnic discrimination against the Chagossians. Human Rights Watch examined and published several of the now publicly available official documents and private comments of senior UK officials, illustrating the blatant racism against the Chagossians. Human Rights Watch also observed differential treatment by UK authorities of people living close to other UK military bases under their rule, e.g. in Cyprus and the Falklands, in comparison to the predominately African Chagossians.
Still fighting for justice and reparations
Today, thousands of Chagossians live around the world, mostly in Mauritius, the UK, and Seychelles. The UK government, with the involvement of the US, still prevents them from permanently returning to their homeland.
Recent bilateral negotiations between the UK and Mauritius on the exercise of sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelagos have had the purported aim of upholding international law. However they have reinforced racial discrimination against Chagossians, as these negotiations have until now failed to provide for meaningful consultations with Chagossians, especially by the UK, failed to overall acknowledge their rights including to return to all the Islands and for effective reparations, and the UK and US have failed to take full responsibility for past and present abuses and international crimes committed against the Chagossian people which gives rise to full reparations.
Chagossians therefore continue to be left without a pathway to justice and reparations.
Conclusion
The failure to account for the historic racial injustices of the legacies of slavery and colonialism has compounded the harm and fueled the persistence of racial inequality today. As the two reparations cases have clearly demonstrated, and of which there are plenty more examples, the systems and structures that built these legacies, which were embedded in anti-Black racism, remain in place and lead to ongoing human rights violations.
Systemic racism as we know it today is borne out of the legacies of slavery and colonialism, including, but not limited to, economic, education, employment, health, housing, and policing inequalities for Black people.
Furthermore, the legacies of slavery, segregation, colonialism and systemic racism have resulted in a collective sense of dispossession and disempowerment, leaving many Black people and communities feeling like they do not own their own lives, work or worth. This erasure of Black people’s historical agency and autonomy has had a devastating psychic toll, causing intergenerational trauma, anxiety, and feelings of powerlessness.
Despite struggles to shift racial attitudes, processes to address the core of systemic racial inequality, inequity and discrimination in the world today have been inadequate.
As part of reparatory processes, there is need for holistic, victim-centered and independent inquiries into how these historic legacies have created and reinforced structures and systems that have prevented Black people from advancing and the formerly colonized world from evolving into independent and equal players at the global stage. Reparations should always be on the table to ensure healing and an equitable world consistent with fundamental human rights norms, whether those who benefitted from those systems want it or not.
CERD General Recommendation on Reparations
Human Rights Watch recommends to the CERD, in its efforts to strengthen the right to reparations to address racial discrimination embedded in the enduring legacies of slavery, the slave trade and colonialism, to give clear guidance to states parties on:
the applicability of the right to remedy and reparations under international law to address past and present harm and losses inflicted by serious rights abuses and international crimes linked to historic wrongs; the need for victim-centered reparatory processes, which empower affected communities to shape the framework of the process and the outcome; the need for recognition of, accountability and justice for past and present impacts of historic legacies as a pathway to acknowledge and change today’s systems and structures that continue to reinforce racial discrimination rooted in these legacies.
[1] This submission will use the term “anti-Black racism” to refer to a specific form of racism which targets Black people, Africans and people of African descent. Another term used is “anti-Blackness.” Anti-Black racism is used to mean systemic racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance against Black people as major sources and manifestations of the legacies of slavery, colonialism and the slave trade.
[2] This submission will use the broader term “Black people” to refer to Africans identifying as Black and people of African descent.
[3] The concept of racialization as used in this submission refers to the processes by which a group of people, in this case Black people, is defined by the social construct of “race.”
[4] Reparations, as defined by international human rights standards, includes the following forms: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition. Satisfaction includes a range of measures including formal apologies.
[5] Mauritius was granted independence from the UK in 1968.
