The United Nations has condemned the kidnapping and enslavement of millions of people from Africa as the worst atrocity in human history. The vote is the latest and potentially largest effort to acknowledge and address the atrocities of the slave trade. Many of the nations that carried out that trade, however, declined to endorse the statement, and a trio of countries, including the United States, rejected it altogether.
U.N. passes resolution condemning slave trade as countries seek reparations
The U.N. voted Wednesday to approve a resolution that labels the transatlantic slave trade the “gravest crime against humanity.” The resolution was proposed by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama. “Let it be recorded that when history beckoned, we did what was right for the memory of millions who suffered the indignity of slavery,” Mahama said. The resolution was supported by the African Union as well as the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and passed with 123 nations voting in favor of it.
The resolution not only condemns the slave trade and acknowledges the magnitude of the practice but also calls for states to apologize for slavery and to bankroll a reparations fund. The African Union has designated 2026 as the start of the Decade of Action on Reparations. Ghanaian Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has previously called for reparations for “all people of African descent,” arguing, “The trafficking of enslaved Africans and the centuries of racialized chattel enslavement that followed have not been resolved.”
U.S. votes against resolution; European countries abstain
Three countries voted against the resolution: Argentina, Israel and the United States. Dan Negrea, who represents the United States on the U.N. Economic and Social Council, described the resolution as “highly problematic,” arguing against an “attempt to rank crimes against humanity in any type of hierarchy.” The resolution comes as the Trump administration has attempted to downplay the history of slavery and anti-Black racism in the United States. Under President Donald Trump, information describing the severity of slavery has been edited or removed from various federal facilities, sites and websites, such as national parks, the National Park Service website, the Smithsonian and Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park, among others. Despite this track record, Negrea criticized the U.N. resolution’s sponsors for questioning Trump’s support for Black Americans. “President Trump has done more for Black Americans than any other president,” Negrea said. “He’s working tirelessly to deliver for them.” It is unclear if Negrea offered any examples to support this claim.
Meanwhile, 52 nations abstained from the vote. Among them were the United Kingdom and all 27 members of the European Union. According to National Museums Liverpool, “The main European nations involved in slaving were Portugal, Spain, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.” Despite the history of British slave trafficking, the U.K. chargé d’affaires to the U.N., James Kariuki, argued that Britain was “firmly of the view that we must not create a hierarchy of historical atrocities.” Kariuki said that “no single set of atrocities should be regarded as more or less significant than another.”
With the exception of the Netherlands, European countries have generally resisted calls to apologize for the slave trade, and the United States under Trump has censored displays of American history and downplayed the horrors of slavery. Despite this resistance, African and Caribbean countries continue to fight not only for acknowledgement but also for reparations when it comes to slavery, and the passage of the U.N. resolution marks a major step forward for those efforts.