The Repair Campaign - CERD Feedback for GR on Reparations

General Comment

The Repair Campaign (TRC) welcomes this draft general recommendation (GR) and the inclusion of key elements raised by stakeholders we consulted across the CARICOM region, who continue to be affected by the intergenerational harms caused by the transatlantic trade in Africans (TTA). In particular, TRC welcomes the inclusion of provisions centred on memorialisation and apology (paras. 64, 65, 102-107), on education (paras. 102-107), and on the necessity for reparations measures to be consultative, as stated in paras. 78 and 82-84, a principle that is central to TRC’s advocacy and the “effective participation of people of African descent and their communities in these processes” as expressed in the 2024 OHCHR Reparatory justice for people of African descent report and A/HRC/47/53.¹

We recognise that it is unfeasible, and perhaps impossible, to articulate the entirety of the harms caused by the TTA and colonial extraction in the upcoming GR, nor can all avenues to repair be exhaustively explored in the document. We also acknowledge that included elements must be actionable, supported by the existing human rights framework, and built upon precedent established by treaty bodies. TRC’s feedback centres on the inclusion of two elements that fulfil these while addressing significant gaps that should be conceived as integral to reparations for the TTA: (1) land access, housing, and property rights as discrete elements requiring targeted reparations; and (2) climate change as a consequence of colonial extraction and continuing harms to people of African descent. We also propose historical refinements mentioning the specific case of Haiti and additional colonial powers who engaged in the TTA.

Land Access, Housing, and Property Rights

ICERD and previous CERD GRs make specific reference to property and housing as foundational rights to be protected, given these are a determinant to the enjoyment of other primary rights including health, economic rights and, in some cases, cultural identity. Property and housing are specifically recognised under Article 2 of ICERD, and particularly under Article 5(d)(v) and 5(e)(iii).

TRC recommends that the Committee establishes land access as a distinct reparations issue requiring dedicated attention, both within argumentation for the right to remedy (para. 47), as well as in measures outlined in paras. 91-96. This should be addressed as discrete questions requiring “special measures” or “affirmative action” measures as addressed within the context of CERD GR 32 (paras. 11, 12, 13), which also recognised the special case of housing as a fundamental right (para. 13). The Committee has previously specified in GR 34, on racial discrimination against people of African descent, in paras. 4(a) and 50, that housing and property are special and fundamental rights to be protected, including through special measures specifically targeted towards people of African descent, as in paras. 18-21.

As TRC documented in its original submission, inequality in access to land and housing, and irregular tenure, are questions that are the direct result of discriminatory colonial policies that were foundational to the system of TTA, chattel enslavement, and the continued exploitation of enslaved Africans which persisted after nominal abolition. These barriers generate continuing harms for descendants of enslaved Africans, including: substandard housing causing health disparities, inability to access public services under irregular tenure, and obstacles to intergenerational wealth accumulation, for example, through a lack of access to loans in the absence of collateral, despite occupying land, in some cases, for generations.

We also note the special case of Rastafarian communities across the Caribbean. Not only were they some of the earliest advocates for reparations, helping to formally introduce the concept into social and political discourse from the 1960s onwards, but as repeatedly expressed during stakeholder consultations, the relationship to land is also one of cultural importance, falling within the scope of GR 34 para. 4(a), which recognises their right to use, protect, and conserve lands integral to their cultural identity and ways of life. As expressed by one Rastafarian stakeholder consulted by TRC in Guyana,

“Formerly enslaved Africans pooled their monies together and bought former estates they used to work on. And then the colonial government decided to establish a Village Act and convert those estates into villages (…) And they totally neglected it and even sabotaged it, flooded it. There’s been no kind of recompense (…) Africans are asking for lands in lieu of those lands that were lost. We can’t talk about new development without land. Land is the basis.”

This reflects the urgent priority that land access holds for the descendants of enslaved Africans across the Caribbean. The Committee should disaggregate property rights from other reparations elements, as they represent a fundamental legacy of colonial exploitation and a determinant of other Convention-protected rights. Reparatory measures should include special programmes to facilitate equitable access and tenure security, and/or mechanisms ensuring affected communities participate in designing remedial programmes that address these historical inequities and their continuing barriers to fundamental rights.

Climate change, colonialism, and the ensuing and ongoing harms to people of African descent

While CERD and other human rights bodies have acknowledged climate change’s historical origins and disproportionate impacts on specific populations, the explicit connection between colonial extraction, the transatlantic trade in Africans, and climate vulnerability has not been comprehensively recognised in UN human rights instruments. GR 38 presents a critical opportunity to institutionalise this connection, building on the ICJ’s July 2025 Advisory Opinion and CERD’s GR 37 on health.

The ICJ’s historic July 2025 Advisory Opinion represents a key opportunity for climate accountability in this context. The Court recognised that a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a fundamental prerequisite for enjoying all human rights, and established that human rights obligations and climate commitments are mutually reinforcing (para. 404). A stable climate is foundational to the rights to life, health, food, water, and housing (paras. 373ff), all rights that are also specifically protected under ICERD or previous GRs in relation to people of African descent.² Therefore, climate change and its harms to people of African descent are inseparable from the questions addressed in the upcoming GR, and their inclusion would be both timely and appropriate in addressing a critical question of intergenerational consequence.

While stopping short of explicitly recognising historical environmental harms as an element of reparations, the Court did leave the door open for compensation for the cumulative effects of greenhouse gas emissions. However, despite the ICJ’s distancing from temporal questions in the AO, in his separate opinion, Judge Yusuf stated that “historical responsibility is not just a matter of history but a matter of continued contribution, since the historical emissions of industrialised countries continue to have a significant impact on the current climate system.”³ This understanding of “continued contribution” aligns directly with CERD’s mandate to address not only historical discrimination but its continuing effects. Colonial-era and continuing greenhouse gas emissions from plantation economies and extractive industries continue to warm the climate, creating ongoing harm for descendants of enslaved Africans living in climate-vulnerable SIDS.

Further, the historical link has already been made by specialist institutions: in its most recent synthesis report (2023), the International Panel on Climate Change has acknowledged that the harms endured by specific populations is linked to colonial structures and their ongoing effects: “vulnerability is exacerbated by inequity and marginalisation linked to (…) ethnicity (…) and historical and ongoing patterns of inequity such as colonialism.”⁴ Additionally, the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent’s 2021 annual meeting explicitly stressed that people of African descent “continue to be subjected to environmental racism and are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis” and that “climate change is a by-product of an economic system that is heavily reliant on extraction, exploitation and accumulation through dispossession.”⁵ Further, as concisely expressed in para. 56 of A/HRC/48/78, “as a consequence of historical and structural racism, exploitative economic models and the legacy of the trade in enslaved Africans, people of African descent have lived segregated, and decisions have been taken that have disproportionately exposed them to environmental hazards.”⁶

In GR no. 37 (2024), CERD noted that some racial and ethnic groups are “particularly vulnerable to the health effects of climate change owing to their geographical location” and “socioeconomic situation” (para. 23). Given that both these questions have historically been determined by the TTA for many descendants of enslaved Africans, and that colonial industrialisation has a causal relationship with climate change – not only due to greenhouse gas emissions, but also through irreversible impacts on soil quality and the destruction of natural barriers protecting coastlines from natural disasters – TRC strongly recommends that reference to climate in the reparations discourse be included.

Other additions

Include reference to additional European countries who participated in the TTA despite domestic laws prohibiting enslavement in paras. 9-13. This comes with particular reference to Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, where slavery was either explicitly or de facto abolished before or during the early modern era, predating their involvement in the TTA. As noted by Thomas Craemer in his discussion on international reparations for the slave trade, as well as in the extensive work on reparations by Nora Wittman, “England, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, slavery was illegal in the European territory and only gradually tolerated in colonial overseas possessions. Portugal and Spain came closest to legally recognising slavery, but only as a result of captivity in a ‘just’ war. Kidnapping of Africans did not qualify as legal enslavement.⁷

In Sweden, King Magnus Eriksson formally outlawed thralldom (slavery) in 1335, eliminating any recognition of slavery in 1350. In Norway, slavery was phased out gradually from the late twelfth century, with Magnus Lagabøtes’ law code of 1274 no longer recognising slavery as a legal institution, yet it participated in the TTA during the Danish-Norwegian Union. In Denmark, thralldom had effectively ended by the 14^th century, though the TTA was only abolished in 1792, while it still actively engaged in the practice through a 10-year ‘grace’ period. Like other formal colonial powers, it also compensated enslavers for “lost property”.

Recognise the special case of Haiti as a primary example of the historical injustices put forth in para. 21. While TRC welcomes the inclusion of the reference to compensation paid to enslavers for “loss of property” following manumission, the case of Haiti presents an additional historical injustice requiring recognition. Following independence in 1804, France imposed a massive indemnity on Haiti as a precondition for diplomatic recognition, effectively requiring formerly enslaved Africans to compensate their former enslavers for ‘lost property.’ This imposed debt, not fully repaid until 1947, devastated Haiti’s economy from its inception as the first black republic and represents a profound reversal of reparatory justice. Haiti’s contemporary political instability and economic marginalisation are inseparable from this foundational extraction of wealth, making it a critical historical example for the Committee’s consideration of what constitutes historical injustice requiring remedy.