Ghana’s permanent UN representative, Samuel Yao Kumah, on Monday urged member states to back a draft resolution recognising the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity,” saying it would strengthen ongoing reparations efforts.
The resolution is primarily aimed at supporting reparations initiatives led by “our Caribbean brothers and sisters,” Kumah told an African Group press conference ahead of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama bringing it before the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.
He emphasised that the resolution does not seek to “rank suffering or diminish other historical tragedies,” but identifies a “historical turning point” that reshaped humanity and established structures that continue to drive global inequalities today.
“By recognising this historical reality, the international community strengthens its capacity to address contemporary challenges rooted in that shared past,” he said.
Political and historical recognition
Kumah said the resolution acknowledges the trafficking and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans as a historical rupture that inaugurated the modern racialised global order.
He stressed that UN General Assembly resolutions of this kind are declaratory political instruments, not judicial rulings, and cannot create legally binding hierarchies of crime. The measure constitutes political and historical recognition rather than a legal classification.
While the resolution does not detail reparations, Kumah said Ghana and its partners aim to provide a foundation for other reparative initiatives. He also noted that the law was historically used to justify enslaving Africans and enforcing racial segregation for more than five centuries.
Attempts to recognise this historical truth, he said, are often met with legal technicalities that “risk silencing voices and obscuring historical reality.”
“The law must never again serve as a shield to avoid truth,” Kumah added.
