Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama Proposes U.N. Resolution to Formalize Recognition of Slavery’s Legacy
From the 1500s through the 1800s, millions of Africans were violently taken from West and Central Africa, moved through slave forts, and forced onto ships bound for the Americas. Those who survived the Middle Passage endured disease, starvation, torture, and death, only to be sold into a brutal system of slavery that helped build global industries and financial systems still shaping modern life today.
For generations, descendants of the enslaved and their advocates have pushed for meaningful restitution for the wealth and prosperity their ancestors were denied. Now, the world may be one step closer to formally recognizing the transatlantic slave trade as one of history’s greatest atrocities.
On Wednesday, March 25, the United Nations General Assembly in New York City is scheduled to vote on a resolution introduced by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama that would formally recognize the slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity.”
“Many generations continue to suffer the exclusion, the racism because of the transatlantic slave trade, which has left millions separated from the continent and impoverished,” Ghana’s Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa told BBC News ahead of the vote.
Ghana Pushes Reparations Debate Into Formal U.N. Space
Mahama has been outspoken about the need for global accountability for slavery and its lasting economic harm. He hopes the resolution will move conversations around reparations into formal international policy discussions.
Studies that attempt to measure what is owed to descendants of enslaved people often place that figure between about $12 trillion and $14 trillion, largely based on the racial wealth gap and the value of unpaid labor.
Media mogul and BET founder Robert Johnson has previously argued that payments of about $350,000 per eligible descendant would be a realistic starting point for addressing the economic damage created by slavery and segregation. A similar figure was cited by University of Connecticut researcher Thomas Craemer, who helped publish a 2015 study estimating reparations at up to $14.2 trillion at the time. Craemer has since said that total does not account for inflation.
Other calculations have landed even higher depending on whether they include lost wages, the historical value of enslaved people as stolen labor, denied land such as the broken promise of 40 acres and a mule, and generations of discrimination that followed emancipation.
Supporters of reparations have also pointed to examples from other nations that have paid communities harmed by state sanctioned injustice. Germany did so for victims of the Holocaust, and believe it or not, the U.S. did so for survivors of Japanese internment camps.
What the Resolution Would Actually Do
If adopted, the resolution would not require reparations. Instead, it would call on member nations to begin formal discussions about what accountability should look like.
According to Reuters, the draft resolution urges countries to engage in dialogue around reparative justice, including formal apologies, the return of stolen artifacts, financial compensation, and guarantees that such atrocities are not repeated.
The proposal has already received support from countries in the African Union, the Caribbean Community, and Brazil, nations whose populations were directly shaped by the transatlantic slave trade.
U.S. and Europe Are Already Signaling Opposition
Even with that backing, efforts like this have often stalled because of political resistance. Countries that profited from systems built on enslaved labor have repeatedly argued that current governments should not be financially responsible for historical crimes, despite the long term structural advantages those systems created for some and the lasting disadvantages imposed on others.
Ablakwa acknowledged that both the United States and the European Union have already indicated they do not plan to support the resolution, even though both were major beneficiaries of the transatlantic slave economy and its aftermath.
Some political leaders have shown more willingness to at least examine the issue. Former President Joe Biden previously expressed openness to H.R. 40, a 2020 bill that would have created a federal commission to study the continuing effects of slavery and possible remedies.
Still, the resistance to the U.N. measure reflects what advocates describe as a broader refusal to fully confront both slavery’s present day impact and what meaningful accountability should involve.
Mahama also tied the push to what he described as a growing global effort to minimize or erase the realities of slavery and racism, including debates in the United States over how Black history is taught.
“These policies are becoming a template for other governments as well as some private institutions,” Mahama said during a United Nations event on slavery reparations. “At the very least, they are slowly normalizing the erasure.”
In response, a White House spokesperson said former President Donald Trump had done more than any other president to create economic opportunity for Black Americans, while stopping short of supporting any formal apology or restitution for slavery.
