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	Investor-State dispute settlements have catastrophic consequences for the environment by David Boyd UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment   Oct. 2023   Investor-State dispute settlements have catastrophic consequences for the environment and human rights: UN expert. (OHCHR)   A UN expert has warned of the devastating effects of Investor-State dispute settlement with dire consequences for a wide range of human rights and climate action.   “At a time when it is imperative that States accelerate the pace and ambition of climate and environmental action to prevent planetary catastrophe and fulfil their human rights obligations, a daunting obstacle has emerged,” said David Boyd, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment presenting his report today to the General Assembly.   His report chronicles compelling evidence that a secretive international arbitration process called investor-State dispute settlement has become a major obstacle to urgent actions needed to address the planetary environmental and human rights crises.   “Foreign investors use the dispute settlement process to seek exorbitant compensation from States that strengthen environmental protection, with the fossil fuel and mining industries already winning over $100 billion in awards,” the expert said. “Such cases create regulatory chill.”   The surge in fossil-fuel ISDS claims could not come at a worse time. Humanity has reached the now or never point for achieving the Paris Agreement objective of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, a goal that requires achieving net zero emissions by 2050 - incompatible with new coal, oil or gas developments.   Governments fulfilling their commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate change may be liable to oil and gas corporations for $340 billion in future ISDS cases – a major disincentive for ambitious climate action.   “As ISDS arbitration tribunals routinely prioritise foreign investment and corporate interests above environmental and human rights considerations, ISDS claims have devastating consequences for a wide range of human rights, exacerbating the disproportionate harms suffered by vulnerable and marginalised populations,” the expert said.   As the overwhelming majority of fossil fuel and mining ISDS claims are brought by investors from the global North against respondent States in the global South, the ISDS system has especially devastating consequences for the global South, perpetuating extractivism and economic colonialism.   The Special Rapporteur identifies specific actions that States must take to avoid future claims under the investor-State dispute settlement process and fulfil their human rights obligations in his report.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/investor-state-dispute-settlements-have-catastrophic-consequences http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a78168-paying-polluters-catastrophic-consequences-investor-state-dispute http://www.iied.org/fossil-fuel-companies-rake-80-billion-taxpayers-money-through-shadowy-investment-tribunals   Oct. 2023   A shadowy corner of international law is threatening Climate Action, by Nicholas Kusnetz and Katie Surma for Inside Climate News.   An obscure but far-reaching system allowing corporations to sue governments is being “weaponized” by the fossil fuel and mining industries, according to a new U.N. report, jeopardizing progress in developing nations.   Soon after Italy approved a ban on offshore oil drilling, in 2015, the country received some alarming news: A British oil company that had been planning to drill was suing the government, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.   The company, called Rockhopper, brought its claim not in Italian courts but through a system of international arbitration that allows foreign investors to sue governments. Last year, the company won the case along with an order that the Italian government pay Rockhopper about $200 million.   On Thursday, a United Nations expert warned that cases like these could be the beginning of a wave of litigation that threatens to undermine climate action as nations look to phase out fossil fuel development.   David Boyd, the special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, told a committee of the U.N. General Assembly that governments are being targeted with dozens of legal claims seeking hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, with many of those suits brought by oil and mining companies.   “Please consider how crazy this system is,” Boyd told delegates from scores of nations attending the hearing. “States that are trying to tackle the climate and environmental crisis and safeguard the human rights of their people are being forced to pay billions of dollars in compensation to the very corporations that have caused this crisis. Instead of making polluters pay, states are paying polluters.”   Boyd was presenting the findings of a report about a corner of international law known as investor-state dispute settlements, or ISDS, which has been enshrined by a web of some 3,000 investment treaties and trade agreements, many of which date to the 1990s. The agreements generally offer protections for foreign investors and allow them to file arbitration claims if government actions harm their interests.   Corporations have filed more than 1,250 claims since the 1990s, with the number accelerating over the last decade along with a rise in foreign investment, although the true number of cases is unknown because many remain secret.   Their claims are typically heard by three-member arbitration panels made up of attorneys, with each side nominating one member who, together, pick the third. Arguments are then heard behind closed doors by the arbitrators, whose awards are binding on the parties.   Pakistan was ordered to pay nearly $6 billion to a joint Canadian-Chilean mining company in 2019 after declining to issue it a license. After a protracted legal battle, the parties reached a settlement last year that waived the award in exchange for allowing the mine to proceed.   The Republic of the Congo is currently facing claims from three foreign mining companies seeking more than $30 billion, twice the nation’s gross domestic product.   Oil, gas and mining companies have lodged more claims than any other industry, with many of the awards reaching into the billions of dollars. The 12 largest awards alone, 11 of which have gone to fossil fuel or mining companies, totaled more than $95 billion, according to Boyd’s report, a figure that “likely exceeds the total amount of damages awarded by all courts to victims of human rights violations in all States worldwide, ever.”   While the system was intended to help protect companies when governments nationalize their assets, the report and many other critics of ISDS say that multinational corporations have “weaponized” these protections to challenge new environmental regulations, taxes and other policies that cut into profits.   Because the majority of cases have been filed by corporations from the United States, Europe and Canada against developing nations, many advocates and academics have warned that the ISDS system could further cripple those countries’ ability to address climate change by deepening their foreign debts and constraining their ability to enact environmental protections.   One study published last year in Science identified some $340 billion in potential ISDS claims from oil and gas companies if governments were to begin limiting production.   The fear is that countries faced with the threat of lawsuits will either back down from restricting development or will proceed and be forced to pay sometimes crippling sums, said Kyla Tienhaara, an associate professor at the School of Environmental Studies at Queen’s University in Canada and the paper’s lead author.   The United States currently faces a $15 billion claim from TC Energy, the Canadian firm behind the Keystone XL oil pipeline, after the Biden administration canceled a permit for that project. The Netherlands faces a $1.5 billion claim from the German utility RWE, which sued over the Dutch government’s plan to phase out coal by 2030.   Denmark, New Zealand and France have limited their own climate policies because of the threat of ISDS claims, according to Boyd’s report, and the Spanish government told him that the system discourages countries from transitioning off fossil fuels.   While it is primarily wealthy nations that have faced claims directly tied to climate action, developing nations are far more exposed. According to Tienhaara’s research, Mozambique has the highest potential liability from limiting oil and gas development, up to $31 billion, followed by Guyana and Venezuela.   “Something has to be done,” Boyd said in an interview with Inside Climate News in advance of his presentation. “Governments have to take action to protect themselves from these cases and to stop this before it gets worse.”   A number of industry groups claim that criticism of ISDS are overblown, arguing that national courts discriminate against foreign investors and that the system provides “neutral” forums to resolve disputes.   However, a growing number of research studies from academics and advocacy organizations contradict that finding, indicating that there is no link between ISDS and increased foreign direct investment. Those studies point to South Africa, Brazil and India as examples of nations that have resisted or limited enmeshment in ISDS while continuing to draw investment from abroad.   Meanwhile, lower- and middle-income countries have been defendants in about two-thirds of all publicly reported ISDS cases, according to the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment. Latin American countries alone have paid out over $33 billion in damages or settlements.   That imbalance, coupled with the fact that the majority of claimants are from Europe and North America, has provoked allegations that ISDS promotes “economic colonialism.”   Lisa Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Center on Sustainable Investment, and other critics of the system say multinationals have other options for protecting their investments, including political risk insurance.   Sachs said international investment law should focus on how to drive financing into climate-friendly sectors rather than perpetuating a system that is being used to protect the economic interests of fossil fuel companies.   Critics have identified a host of problems with the system beyond its impact on environmental protections, including that it prioritizes the economic rights of companies over human rights of local communities.   Others say ISDS lacks transparency and that protections are based on vague standards like “fair and equitable treatment” that lead to inconsistent outcomes and give private arbitrators sway over public policy.   ISDS cases have been lucrative for law firms, which have begun advising clients on how to preemptively structure themselves to take advantage of the ISDS system.   The U.S. law firm Jones Day, for instance, issued a client newsletter in 2022 advising fossil fuel companies to review their operations to ensure they had access to ISDS protections: “Such restructuring should take place before any climate-related dispute with the State has arisen or is reasonably foreseeable,” the newsletter said.   Wealthy countries have recently begun shielding themselves from ISDS. Within the United States, calls to remove ISDS from free trade agreements have found common cause on both sides of the political spectrum. In renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Trump administration dropped ISDS between the United States and Canada based in part upon the belief that the system infringes on U.S. sovereignty and encourages American companies to invest, and move jobs, abroad. Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has long argued against international arbitration.   Like the United States, European countries have taken steps to protect themselves, with many withdrawing from the Energy Charter Treaty, a 90s-era multilateral free trade agreement aimed at promoting investment in energy development. The Energy Charter Treaty has spawned billions of dollars in ISDS claims over governments’ decisions to phase out fossil fuels. So far, Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland have either withdrawn or given notice of their intended withdrawal from the treaty, which has been widely maligned as incompatible with global climate goals.   And yet, these wealthy nations generally have not withdrawn from treaties with poorer nations that tend to benefit corporations headquartered in the Global North. “The inequality, injustice and hypocrisy are staggering,” Boyd’s report said.   At the U.N. hearing, representatives of the United States and European Union said little about the report beyond stressing that they are already leading efforts to reform the ISDS system within the World Bank and U.N. agencies that handle trade and investment disputes.   Those efforts, which have dragged on for years, have mostly focused on adjusting the procedural mechanisms of ISDS, such as creating a permanent pathway for governments to bring counterclaims. Some newer investment treaties have included provisions that aim to exempt climate, environmental and other regulations from ISDS exposure.   But Boyd and many other critics of ISDS have argued that the system is so inherently flawed that the only option is to eliminate it altogether.   Developing nations, Boyd told the delegates, “should form a collective effort to tear up these existing agreements between those states, and in particular beginning with the European Union, Canada and the United States,” he said. “Because how can those wealthy northern nations object to having the same basic system for developing states when they won’t accept it themselves.”   http://insideclimatenews.org/news/21102023/un-protests-isds-as-economic-colonialism/ http://insideclimatenews.org/news/14012024/wealthy-corporations-extract-millions-from-developing-countries-isds/   Oct. 2023   The International Court of Justice (ICJ) should address legal contradictions holding back action on climate change, by by Camilla More and Lorenzo Cotula for the International Institute for Environment and Development.   The International Court of Justice (ICJ) needs to address the legal contradictions that are holding back action on climate change when it rules on the legal obligations of states to avoid environmental harm next year, according to IIED.   Governments have until 22 January, 2024 to make submissions to the court after the UN General Assembly asked the ICJ to hand down an advisory opinion.   Vanuatu led the push for this resolution, which pointed to a range of sources the court could use including customary international law, the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, the Paris Agreement, and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.   But instruments known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) tribunals can make it more difficult for countries to take action on climate change, because they protect the interests of businesses when governments seek to change policy. Fossil fuel companies are prolific users of these provisions, such as those in the Energy Charter Treaty.   In 'How the International Court of Justice can advance climate action', researchers set out why the ICJ should provide guidance on interpreting investment treaties in the light of climate obligations in any ruling it gives that states have a duty to act on the climate crisis.   Camilla More, an IIED climate change researcher who works closely with the Least Developed Countries Group at the UN, said: “We’re tackling the climate emergency too slowly, and some of the reasons are obvious. Investment treaties, though, are not always widely known about despite the very real problems they cause governments trying to transition away from fossil fuels.   “Individuals, especially young people, are increasingly looking to the courts for leadership on this crisis. Deep reform is needed to align investment treaties with the Paris Agreement goals and in delivering its opinion on climate obligations, the ICJ has an important role to play in getting this started.”   The UN’s Human Rights Council has said repeatedly that climate change adversely impacts the effective enjoyment of human rights, including the right to life, food, health, housing, self-determination, safe drinking water and sanitation, and development.   Similar sentiments have formed part of judicial rulings in Australia, Colombia, the Netherlands and the United States in recent years, showing that the climate crisis is not outside the purview of the courts. Recently a judge in Montana ruled that young people have a fundamental right to a “safe and stable” climate.   Two longstanding international declarations, from Stockholm in 1972 and Rio in 1992, show governments have the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other states or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.   Though these declarations did not directly establish a legal duty, over time the principle has been affirmed by judges as an obligation in environmental law.   A number of trade agreements affirm countries’ commitment to implementing the Paris Agreement, and the UN has guiding principles for businesses including the fossil fuel sector that say companies should respect human rights.   However, cutting the emissions driving climate change may require governments to restrict or ban carbon-intensive activity, which might trigger ISDS claims, an investment treaty system that serves to protect businesses’ interests and can – as the IPCC has noted – constrain a country’s ability to take action on the climate crisis.   IIED believes the ICJ must take account of these contradictions and rule in a way that ensures international law is aligned with climate goals.   http://www.iied.org/icj-should-address-legal-contradictions-holding-back-action-climate-change http://www.iied.org/21871iied http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(23)00214-0/fulltext http://www.iisd.org/publications/report/investor-state-disputes-fossil-fuel-industry Visit the related web page
	African and Caribbean nations to seek reparations for slavery by OHCHR, Reuters, news agencies   Apr. 2024   Africa and Caribbean unite on reparations. (Reuters)   Support is building among Africa and Caribbean nations for the creation of an international tribunal on atrocities dating to the transatlantic trade of enslaved people, with the United States backing a U.N. panel at the heart of the effort.   A tribunal, modelled on other ad-hoc courts such as the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals after World War Two, was proposed last year. It has now gained traction within a broader slavery reparations movement, Reuters reporting based on interviews with a dozen people reveals.   Formally recommended in June by the U.N. Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, the idea of a special tribunal has been explored further at African and Caribbean regional bodies, said Eric Phillips, a vice-chair of the slavery reparations commission for the Caribbean Community, CARICOM, which groups 15 member states.   The scope of any tribunal has not been determined but the U.N. Forum recommended in a preliminary report that it should address reparations for enslavement, apartheid, genocide, and colonialism.   Advocates, including within CARICOM and the African Union (AU), which groups 55 nations across the continent, are working to build wider backing for the idea among U.N. members, Phillips said.   A special U.N. tribunal would help establish legal norms for complex international and historical reparations claims, its supporters say. Opponents of reparations argue, among other things, that contemporary states and institutions should not be held responsible for historical slavery.   Even its supporters recognise that establishing an international tribunal for slavery will not be easy.   There are "huge obstacles," said Martin Okumu-Masiga, Secretary-General of the Africa Judges and Jurists Forum (AJJF), which is providing reparations-related advice to the AU.   Hurdles include obtaining the cooperation of nations that were involved in the trade of enslaved people and the legal complexities of finding responsible parties and determining remedies.   "These things happened many years ago and historical records and evidence can be challenging to access and even verify," Okumo-Masiga said.   Unlike the Nuremberg trials, nobody directly involved in transatlantic slavery is alive.   Asked about the idea of a tribunal, a spokesperson for the British Foreign Office acknowledged the country's role in transatlantic slavery, but said it had no plan to pay reparations. Instead, past wrongs should be tackled by learning lessons from history and tackling "today's challenges," the spokesperson said.   However, advocates for reparations say Western countries and institutions that continue to benefit from the wealth slavery generated should be held accountable, particularly given ongoing legacies of racial discrimination.   A tribunal would help establish an "official record of history," said Brian Kagoro, a Zimbabwean lawyer who has been advocating for reparations for over two decades.   Racism, impoverishment and economic underdevelopment are linked to the longstanding consequences of transatlantic slavery from the United States to Europe and the African continent, according to U.N. studies.   "These legacies are alive and well," said Clive Lewis, a British Labour MP and a descendant of people enslaved in the Caribbean nation of Grenada.   Black people "live in poorer and more polluted areas, they have worse diets, they have worse educational outcomes... because structural racism is embedded deep."   The proposal for a tribunal was discussed in November at a reparations summit in Ghana attended by African and Caribbean leaders.   The Ghana summit ended with a commitment to explore judicial routes, including "litigation options."   Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria, is in favour of the push for a tribunal, Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar told Reuters in February, saying the country would support the idea "until it becomes a reality."   In Grenada, where hundreds of thousands were enslaved, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell is "in full support," a spokesperson said, describing the tribunal as a CARICOM-led initiative.   Phillips said the work to establish a tribunal would have to take place through the United Nations system and include conversations with countries, including Portugal, Britain, France, Spain, Netherlands and Denmark, that were involved in trading enslaved people to the Caribbean and other regions.   Reuters could not establish how many countries in Africa and the Caribbean were likely to support the idea.   Among the tribunal's most vocal advocates is Justin Hansford, a Howard University law professor backed by the U.S. State Department to serve at the U.N. forum. He said the idea will be discussed at the forum's third session, starting April 16, due to be attended by 50 or more nations.   Hansford then plans to travel to Africa to lobby for further support, with the goal of raising the proposal with stronger backing during the U.N. General Assembly in September, he told Reuters.   "A lot of my work now is to try to help make it a reality," he said of the tribunal, saying it could take three to five years to get it off the ground. Phillips said the goal was to garner enough support by 2025.   The United States, which has financed the U.N forum, "will make a decision on the tribunal when it has been developed and established," a U.S. State Department spokesperson said. "However, the United States strongly supports" the forum's work, the spokesperson added.   Regarding reparations, "the complexity of the issue, legal challenges, and differing perspectives among Caribbean nations present significant challenges," the spokesperson said.   The U.N. leadership has now come out in support for reparations, which have been used in other circumstances to offset large moral and economic debts, such as to Japanese Americans interned by the United States during World War Two and to families of Holocaust survivors.   "We call for reparatory justice frameworks, to help overcome generations of exclusion and discrimination," U.N. General Secretary Antonio Guterres said on March 25, in his most direct public comments yet on the issue.   "No country with a legacy of enslavement, the trade in enslaved Africans, or colonialism has fully reckoned with the past, or comprehensively accounted for the impacts on the lives of people of African descent today," said Liz Throssell, spokesperson for the U.N. Human Rights office, in response to a question about the tribunal.   The Netherlands apologised for its role in transatlantic slavery last year and announced a roughly $200 million fund to address that past. A spokesperson for the foreign ministry said it was not aware of the discussions around a tribunal and could not respond to questions.   The French government declined to comment. The governments of Portugal, Spain and Denmark did not respond to requests for comment.   The push for a tribunal stems in part from a belief that claims need to be enshrined in a legal framework, said Okumu-Masiga, of the Africa Judges and Jurists Forum.   Several institutions, including the European Union, have concluded that transatlantic slavery was a crime against humanity.   After the 1940s Nuremberg trials, the U.N. formalised the structure of special tribunals - criminal courts set up on an ad-hoc basis to investigate serious international crimes, such as crimes against humanity.   The U.N. has since established two: one to prosecute those responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide and another to prosecute war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.   The Rwanda and Yugoslavia tribunals were established by the U.N. Security Council, however the International Criminal Court, another international U.N. tribunal, was founded through a General Assembly resolution, a possible route for a slavery reparations tribunal, Hansford said.   Okumu-Masiga said affected countries, descendents of enslaved people and indigenous groups could be potential claimants, while defendants could include nations and institutions with historic links to slavery or even descendants of enslavers.   An international tribunal is not the only judicial path available.   At a summit of Caribbean countries in February this year, the gathered prime ministers and presidents proposed working with the AU to request an ICJ advisory legal opinion on reparations through the U.N. General Assembly, a source familiar with the matter at CARICOM said.   Makmid Kamara, founder of the Accra-based civil society group Reforms Initiatives that works with the AU on reparatory justice, said decisions on which route to take would be made based on that advisory by the ICJ.   From the 15th to the late 19th century, at least 12.5 million enslaved Africans were forcibly transported by mainly European but also U.S. and Brazilian-flagged ships and sold into slavery.   Before pushing for the abolition of slavery, Britain transported an estimated 3.2 million people, the most active European country after Portugal, which enslaved nearly 6 million.   Those who survived the brutal voyage ended up toiling on plantations under inhumane conditions in the Americas, mostly in Brazil, the Caribbean and the United States, while others profited from their labour.   Calls for reparations started with enslaved people themselves.   "They ran away, they raised their voices in songs of protests, they fought wars of resistance," said Verene A. Sheperd, director of the centre for reparation research at the University of West Indies.   The movement later garnered support from quarters as varied as U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and the Caribbean's Rastafarians. In the past year, some of the world's largest institutions have added their voices.   Ghana led efforts to get African support for formally pursuing reparations, with Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa also taking up the cause, said Kamara.   Most discussion has focused on transatlantic trafficking, Hansford and Phillips said, rather than the older trans-Saharan trade to the Islamic world, estimated to have transported several million enslaved Africans.   What reparations would consist of in practice is debated. Some, including in the United States, have pushed for individual payments to descendants of enslaved people. CARICOM, in a 2014 plan, called for debt cancellation and support from European nations to tackle public health and economic crises.   The AU decision to join CARICOM has given new heft to the campaign, said Jasmine Mickens, a U.S.- based strategist for social movements who specialises in reparations.   The AU is now developing Africa's own white paper on what reparations might look like, said Okumu-Masiga.   "We have a global community behind this message," said Mickens, who attended the Ghana event. "That's something this movement has never seen before."   (Reporting by Catarina Demony in Lisbon; Additional reporting by Felix Onuah in Abuja, Maxwell Akalaare Adombila in Accra, John Irish in Paris and Lissandra Paraguassu in Brasilia)   * UN report on financial reparations for transatlantic slavery: http://tinyurl.com/3uce7wku   http://www.reuters.com/world/slavery-tribunal-africa-caribbean-unite-reparations-2024-04-04 http://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/18/africans-and-people-african-descent-call-europe-reckon-their-colonial-legacies http://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/14/europe-has-yet-address-colonial-legacies-0 http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/03/un-experts-urge-states-recognise-and-address-legacy-slave-trade http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/09/strong-leadership-and-political-will-crucial-ensure-reparatory-justice   Sep. 2023   A UN report calling on countries to consider financial reparations for transatlantic slavery has been hailed as a significant step forward by campaigners.   The report by the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said no country had comprehensively accounted for the past and addressed the legacy of the mass enslavement of people of African descent for more than 400 years.   “Under international human rights law, compensation for any economically assessable damage, as appropriate and proportional to the gravity of the violation and the circumstances of each case, may also constitute a form of reparations,” the report said.   “In the context of historical wrongs and harms suffered as a result of colonialism and enslavement, the assessment of the economic damage can be extremely difficult owing to the length of time passed and the difficulty of identifying the perpetrators and victims.”   The report stressed, however, that the difficulty in making a legal claim to compensation “cannot be the basis for nullifying the existence of underlying legal obligations”.   Michael McEachrane, a researcher and member of the UN permanent forum on people of African descent, said the report was “a huge step forward”, adding it came amid significant recent activity on the international stage.   McEachrane said: “There seems to be a big emphasis on reparations as a matter of financial compensation in the report. Various initiatives at the UN level, including the Caricom call for reparatory justice, moves way beyond a conception of reparations as a matter of financial compensation.   “There is no financial compensation for 500 years of enslavement and colonialism, and what most of us are calling for is a systemic and structural transformation.”   A recent report by the UN permanent forum on people of African descent, which was sent to the human rights council and general assembly, also called for reparative justice.   McEachrane said: “To address the lasting consequences of these histories – in terms of inequities, structural and systemic injustices, lack of equal enjoyment of human dignity and rights – that will include financing, but the point is not the financial compensation, but the structural and systemic transformation.”   The secretary general’s report concluded that states should consider a “plurality of measures” to address the legacies of enslavement and colonialism, including pursuing justice and reparations, and contributing to reconciliation.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/09/strong-leadership-and-political-will-crucial-ensure-reparatory-justice http://tinyurl.com/3uce7wku   Aug. 2023   UK cannot ignore calls for slavery reparations, says leading UN judge. (Guardian News)   A leading judge at the international court of justice has said the UK will no longer be able to ignore the growing calls for reparation for transatlantic slavery.   Judge Patrick Robinson, who presided over the trial of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, said the international tide on slavery reparations was quickly shifting and urged the UK to change its current position on the issue.   “They cannot continue to ignore the greatest atrocity, signifying man’s inhumanity to man. They cannot continue to ignore it. Reparations have been paid for other wrongs and obviously far more quickly, far more speedily than reparations for what I consider the greatest atrocity and crime in the history of mankind: transatlantic chattel slavery,” Robinson said.   “I believe that the United Kingdom will not be able to resist this movement towards the payment of reparations: it is required by history and it is required by law.”   Robinson spoke exclusively to the Guardian ahead of Unesco’s Day for Remembering the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Abolition. He is scheduled to make the keynote address at the London mayor’s office to mark the day.   The event follows the key role that Robinson played in writing and compiling the Brattle Group Report on Reparations for Transatlantic Chattel Slavery, which was published in June. The report, which has been described as the most comprehensive state-to-state reparations analysis, identifies the reparations that are due in respect of 31 countries in which transatlantic slavery was practised.   The study estimates that trillions of dollars are owed in reparations to countries affected by transatlantic slavery. The report, which was published by the University of the West Indies after a symposium held by the American Society of International Law, concludes that the UK alone is required to pay a sum of $24tn (£18.8tn) as reparations for transatlantic slavery in 14 countries. Of that sum, about $9.6tn is due to Jamaica. The report uses calculations made by the Brattle Group, which factors in the wealth and GDP amassed by countries that enslaved African people.   When asked if the high figures came as a surprise, Robinson said no. “These calculations are not over a period of five years or 10 years. They cover the entire duration of transatlantic chattel slavery, which means they cover hundreds of years. What is more, reparations have never been paid. So the calculations begin from day one of transatlantic chattel slavery, that is hundreds of years; and that alone explains the high figures.”   To address the figures, Robinson said the report proposed that payments be made over a longer period of time, between 10 and 25 years, rather than instantly.   At the launch of the report at the University of the West Indies in Kingston Jamaica, PJ Patterson, a former prime minister of Jamaica, reportedly said that reparations were owed to Jamaica and the other countries affected by transatlantic slavery, and would not rule out bringing the issue to courts.   On achieving reparations through international courts, Robinson said: “It’s possible, but frankly, I think the greater probability is for a settlement on a political diplomatic basis, which takes into account the relevant legal considerations … But I don’t rule out court proceedings.”   In April, the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, refused to apologise for the UK’s role in the slave trade or to commit to paying reparations.   Robinson said: “I have the highest regard for the prime minister of the United Kingdom, but I believe the stance that he has taken is regrettable and I very much hope that he will reconsider it.   “The tide is changing, the political tide, the global tide is moving. The United Kingdom – including both principle parties, the Conservative party and the Labour party and the other parties, which are just as important – need to take into account that movement is a movement in favour of reparations. The transatlantic chattel slavery is the greatest atrocity in the history of humankind without parallel for its brutality, without parallel for its length over 400 years, without parallel for its profitability.”   http://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/22/uk-cannot-ignore-calls-for-slavery-reparations-says-leading-un-judge-patrick-robinson http://www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/brattle-consultants-quantify-reparations-for-transatlantic-chattel-slavery-in-pro-bono-paper/ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/17/african-and-caribbean-nations-agree-move-to-seek-reparations-for-slavery http://globalvoices.org/2023/12/02/a-movement-is-growing-across-africa-and-diaspora-demanding-reparations-for-the-impacts-of-slavery-and-colonialism/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2023/12/un-experts-urge-shift-towards-human-rights-economy-prevent-contemporary-forms http://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Racism/SR/A_74_231_Reparations__SR_Racism.pdf http://www.un.org/en/un-chronicle/legacy-slavery-caribbean-and-journey-towards-justice http://courier.unesco.org/en/articles/deep-legacy-slavery http://news.un.org/en/ Visit the related web page
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