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General Assembly: 75th plenary meeting, 80th session - International Day of Remembrance of Victims of Slavery and Transatlantic Slave Trade
The General Assembly declared the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity as Member States debated the legal ramifications of such a declaration. The Assembly adopted the text “Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime against Humanity” (document A/80/L.48) with a recorded vote of 123 in favour to 3 against (Argentina, Israel, United States), with 52 abstentions.
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Foreign Minister of Ghana, speaking on behalf of the African Group, presented “L.48”, stressing the text is “not about reopening history” or targeting individual States, and “does not create legal hierarchies of crime”. Rather, it aims to complete history by establishing a principled framework for reconciliation grounded in truth and rooted “not in retribution, but in moral recognition”. The text’s objectives, he explained, are to secure formal and unequivocal recognition of slavery’s world-breaking impact, affirm its enduring consequences, reinforce global efforts towards “reparatory justice through dialogue and cooperation” and strengthen solidarity against “systemic racism and historical denialism”.
While legal technicalities and procedural arguments were said to have been used “to once again silence voices”, the message is clear: “Justice does not expire with time,” and affirming the declaration would strengthen the very foundations of justice upon which the United Nations was built.
Today’s meeting was held in commemoration of International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. On 25 March 1807, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed in the United Kingdom.
