The African Union has formally joined efforts with Caribbean leaders to demand reparations from Britain and other former colonial powers for slavery, imperialism and what it described as ongoing "structural and systemic injustice."
At a joint summit in Addis Ababa, representatives of the 55-nation bloc said they would coordinate with the 15-member Caribbean Community, or Caricom, to press for "meaningful reparations" including financial compensation, the return of cultural artifacts and reforms to global economic systems.
"We will work together to honour our ancestors, to uplift our descendants and reclaim our shared destiny in freedom, justice and unity," Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, chairperson of the African Union Commission, said at the summit. The AU said it had declared the year a "Year of Reparations" and would begin drafting demands to present to former colonial states.
Caricom has already sought reparations from former European empires, formally submitting a 10-point plan that calls for financial payments, formal apologies, debt relief and investment in education and development. Some Caribbean governments have sought to hold institutions to account: Grenada petitioned the Bank of England over historical ties to plantations on the island, and Jamaica has considered asking King Charles, as its constitutional monarch, to address the legacy of slavery.
No former colonial government has agreed to pay reparations. Britain, which at the height of its empire controlled large parts of Africa and played a major role in the transatlantic slave trade, has repeatedly rejected calls for reparatory payments. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the U.K. will not provide reparations, and a planned Caricom forum expected to be hosted by Foreign Secretary David Lammy was delayed, officials said, because of the conflict between Israel and Iran.
France and several other European governments have also refused to offer compensation. Some Caribbean leaders have shifted tactics by pursuing claims against universities, museums and financial institutions that benefited from or hold assets tied to colonial exploitation.
African officials framed reparations more broadly than payments alone. They said demands could encompass the return of cultural artifacts taken during the colonial period, structural reforms to international economic and financial systems, and compensation for climate-related harms for which industrialized nations bear historical responsibility. Experts advising the AU have described the return of stolen objects as a step toward "cultural restoration and healing," and several institutions have already begun partial returns of items such as the Benin Bronzes, Ashanti gold and sacred Ethiopian objects, often on loan or temporarily.
The AU’s move follows years of talks with Caribbean counterparts that intensified in 2023. One AU branch has reportedly been working on reparations issues for about eight months, but officials say policy development remains at an early stage and no formal claims have been finalized. African leaders indicated they would now compile their own list of demands to present in coordination with Caricom.
Potential targets of pressure include former imperial powers that partitioned and colonized Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, notably Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Germany. AU officials and Caribbean leaders argue that colonialism's economic extraction and political structures created persistent inequalities across the continent and the diaspora.
Analysts say the joint AU-Caricom initiative aims to combine moral, legal and political pressure to make reparations claims harder to dismiss. The alliance between Africa and Caribbean nations seeks to present a unified front across the Atlantic, leveraging shared history and international advocacy to seek redress.
Legal scholars and campaigners caution that securing direct payments from states will face complex hurdles, including questions about liability, statute-of-limitations issues and the political will of prospective payers. Nevertheless, campaigners argue that negotiations over artifacts, institutional accountability and systemic reforms could yield incremental gains even if comprehensive financial settlements remain elusive.
The summit underscored that demands for reparatory justice have broadened in recent years from narrow claims tied to the transatlantic slave trade to encompass colonial-era expropriation of land and resources, cultural dispossession, and responsibility for environmental degradation. African and Caribbean leaders said they intend to continue consultations and to present coordinated demands to former colonial states and international institutions in the months ahead.