Commonwealth leaders agree to structured dialogue on slavery reparations

Com­mon­wealth lead­ers have agreed to pur­sue struc­tured di­a­logue on repara­to­ry jus­tice, in­clud­ing the his­tor­i­cal harms of the transat­lantic traf­fick­ing of en­slaved Africans, as the is­sue took cen­tre stage at the 2026 Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

In their com­mu­niqué is­sued at the con­clu­sion of the sum­mit in St John’s, un­der the head­ing “Repara­to­ry Jus­tice,” lead­ers re­called com­mit­ments made in the 2024 Samoa Com­mu­niqué, agree­ing that the time had come for “mean­ing­ful, truth­ful and re­spect­ful con­ver­sa­tion” to­wards forg­ing a com­mon fu­ture based on eq­ui­ty.

The lead­ers ac­knowl­edged de­vel­op­ments in the repara­to­ry jus­tice move­ment since that meet­ing, in­clud­ing the adop­tion of Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly Res­o­lu­tion A/RES/80/250, which de­clared the traf­fick­ing of en­slaved Africans and racialised chat­tel en­slave­ment of Africans the gravest crime against hu­man­i­ty.