U.S. Votes No as UN Calls Slave Trade ‘Gravest Crime’ and Backs Reparations

Adam Mahoney, Capital B

Global leaders are moving toward reparations, but U.S. opposition leaves Black Americans fighting that battle largely on their own.

The United States joined Israel and Argentina on Thursday in voting against a Ghana-led resolution that declared the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans the “gravest crime against humanity” and urged countries to pursue reparations.

The nonbinding measure, backed by more than 120 nations, calls for formal apologies, compensation, and other forms of reparatory justice for people of African descent worldwide. The measure explicitly links centuries of slavery to today’s anti-Black racism and economic inequality.

Washington’s refusal to support it puts the U.S. at odds with much of the Global South and with Black reparations advocates at home, who see the vote as a rare opening for global accountability on slavery’s enduring harms and a test of U.S. leaders’ stated commitments to racial justice.

CapitalB includes a quote from the US Ambassador.

Some American states and cities have considered or implemented reparations.

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