Case Explained:This article breaks down the legal background, charges, and implications of Case Explained: The gravest crime against humanity – Legal Perspective
WHY THE GRAVEST CRIME?
Before the vote, U.S. Ambassador Dan Negrea, the U.S. representative to the UN Economic and Social Council, stated that the text was “highly problematic in countless respects,” Negrea expressed regret that Washington felt compelled to remind this council once again that the United Nations exists “to maintain international peace and security” and was not founded “to advance narrow specific interests and agendas, to establish niche International Days, or to create new costly meeting and reporting mandates.” Additionally, he stated that the U.S. “does not recognize a legal right to reparations for historical wrongs that were not illegal under international law at the time they occurred.”
The first question that arises with this ruling is why slavery is described as the “gravest crime” against humanity, and whether this description suggests that other crimes against humanity, such as genocide, are less grave. As James Kariuki, the United Kingdom chargé d’affaires to the UN, has also stated, the view that “No single set of atrocities should be regarded as more or less significant than another” acknowledges slavery as a crime against humanity while asserting that it is incorrect to assess any group of atrocities as more or less significant than another. In response to this argument, which at first glance seems valid, Kyeretwie Osei, Program Officer at the African Union (AU) Economic, Social, and Cultural Council, emphasizes that the real issue is not about creating a hierarchy among crimes, but rather an effort to properly contextualize that specific period in history. Osei highlights that the impact of that era was earth-shattering and actually laid the groundwork for all subsequent forms of oppression and crimes against humanity. In other words, Osei asserts that the issue is not limited to slavery as a historical event, but that the systemic and structural effects of slavery continue to influence inequality and racism today. From this perspective, the ruling reveals that the histories of enslavement, displacement, and organized theft form the foundations of the modern world.
APOLOGIES AND REPARATIONS
Turning to practical implications, the declaration calls on member states to engage in dialogue regarding reparations, including issuing official apologies, returning stolen works, providing financial compensation, and offering guarantees that such incidents will not recur. While many Western leaders oppose even discussing this issue, critics argue that today’s states and institutions should not be held accountable for historical wrongs. Undoubtedly, countries that built their economic development through slavery over the centuries are concerned that the language in the declaration could legally strengthen claims for reparations.
In December 2022, then-Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte officially apologized, acknowledging that the Netherlands had enabled, encouraged, and profited from slavery; in response, he allocated a 200-million-euro fund specifically for the Dutch Caribbean and Suriname, to be used for social and community initiatives, education, cultural and historical projects, and health programs. The Netherlands remains the only European country to have issued an official apology for its role in slavery.
WHEN JUDGES BECOME DEFENDANTS
Most countries that opposed or abstained from the decision argued that, at the time, slavery was not legally defined as a crime against humanity. Therefore, under the principle of nullum crimen sine lege (no crime without law), they could not be held accountable. This raises the question of how the Nazis, who claimed their actions were legal under German law, could be tried. Of course, there are significant legal, historical, political, and economic differences between the Nuremberg trials and any potential cases involving slavery. Nonetheless, slavery can be evaluated using the logic of Nuremberg; although it was not explicitly defined as a crime in the laws of the time, it was widely recognized as wrong – it was massive in scale, systematic, and inherently immoral. The key difference, however, lies not in the nature of the crime but in the nature of the individuals subject to trial. Nazi atrocities were committed by a defeated regime and brought to justice by the victorious powers, who stood outside the system they condemned. By contrast, slavery is not the act of a single collapsed state, but a centuries-old system embedded within the economies, laws, and global trade networks of powers that still exist today – such as the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the United States. Therefore, applying the logic of Nuremberg here takes on a fundamentally different meaning: it is not about judging a defeated “other,” but confronting the historical foundations of states at the core of the current international order. In this sense, the issue is not merely legal; it is also structural, since the judges would inevitably be defendants as well.
WHAT WILL YOU DO?
To illustrate the ongoing moral dimension, Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” enters the debate on slavery as a moral and historical memory. Marley draws on the reality, as mentioned in the UN declaration, that over the centuries, millions of Africans were captured, sold, transported, and dehumanized.
“Old pirates, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit”
But Marley delivers his most significant insight during the transition from the past to the present.
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
‘Cause none of them can stop the time”
With this, the conversation shifts from the historical reality of slavery to its present-day forms. While laws can abolish slavery and states can apologize for it, the structures it created – such as inherited humiliation, racial hierarchies, internalized inferiority complexes, and systems that privilege certain histories and bodies – can persist in less visible ways than chains.
This moment underscores the relevance of Marley’s lyrics in our broader discussion on the universality of the Enlightenment, colonialism, and the selective application of human dignity. Consider the contradiction embodied by figures such as Immanuel Kant. While Kant formulated universal moral principles, he also wrote hierarchical judgments about races and peoples. Marley’s expression of “mental slavery” can also be read as a response to precisely such inherited thought structures.
Barbadian poet Esther Philips addressed delegates at a UN meeting, saying: “Members of the United Nations General Assembly, your very name implies commitment through your peace initiatives and humanitarian policies to igniting the fires of conscience, empathy, unity, and equity, so that home for all races, and ethnicities is a place of belonging and dignity and no people are made to as if they are unwelcome strangers in this earth. There are spirits of the victims of slavery present in this room at this moment, and they are listening for one word only: justice. Because for them and for the world, there can be no peace without justice –reparatory justice – and that call is answered only when words are turned into action. The question is, what will you do?”
