In a few weeks’ time, it will be the fifth anniversary of the toppling of the statue of the seventeenth century Bristol slave trader, Edward Colston. This event generated a significant debate about how the wrongs of the past, and in particular, slavery, should be dealt with. In Bristol itself, where Colston has been widely commemorated on statues, in street names, cathedral windows, schools and with a dedicated chartable society, there was a wholesale revision of the use of his name, given his direct association with transatlantic chattel slavery; between 1672 and 1689, his ships had transported around 80,000 people from Africa to the Americas, people who were classed, legally, as “property” under Slave Codes such as those passed in Barbados in 1661. This occurred within the increasingly important context of the questioning of the actions of past generations and the need to formulate the means, methods and moral frameworks necessary to process the enduring legacies of historical injustices.
Past Wrongs, Present Rights
Facing up to past wrongs, and questions of transitional justice and reconciliation over time, do not always go uncontested. In 1985, President Mitterrand of France apologised for the treatment of Huguenots in the sixteenth century but refused to take responsibility for how French Jews were treated during WW II. The latter was taken up recently by President Macron, apologising in particular for the “Vel d’Hiv” round up of 13,000 Jews in 1942, who were deported to Auschwitz.
Against a background of opposition within West Germany, and also in Israel, a significant precedent for reparations for mass atrocity was set in the 1952 Luxembourg Agreement for Holocaust reparations. This provided for the payment of 3 billion deutschmarks (around $714 million at the time) over 14 years to the state of Israel. There was, however, considerable debate about this payment being seen as “blood money”. In West Germany, emphasis was placed on this as re-settlement funding and not as compensation for suffering or loss. While in Israel, many found it unfathomable that negotiations were even entered into with Germany.
Germany’s relations with Poland have been impacted for decades by the question of reparations owed for WW II losses. The amount of such reparations was determined to be $1.3 trillion in 2023, a claim which was immediately rejected by Germany. But the issue is still simmering between these two erstwhile adversaries; a recent offer of 200m Euro was reportedly rejected by the Polish government. It is possible that resort to the language of “compensation”, rather than the more contentious “reparations”, may be more palatable in order to resolve this in the future.
But the long durée of the Germany/Poland issue is not without precedent. For example, the “undeniable facts” of Britain’s role in the 1840’s famine in Ireland were not acknowledged by UK politicians until 1997. And within Ireland itself a long-standing demand for recognition of the far-reaching harms caused by the notorious Magdalene Laundry and “mother-and-baby homes” scandal is still ongoing. These “homes” operated from the 1920’s until the 1990’s and at least 10,000 women were confined, subjected to forced labour and, in many cases, to forced adoptions of their infants. The Irish Government issued a formal apology only in 2021, but many of the Catholic Church organisations, which ran these homes, have refused to offer any financial redress, one of them stating they had “no legal or moral” obligation to do so.
Germany eventually apologised for its first, 1904, genocide in Namibia in 2021, but the latter was deemed to be hollow as it was based on a “gesture of reconciliation” and not on any legally binding reparations. This was later recently rectified, in December 2024, with an updated apology and a reparations deal. The Namibian example illustrates some of the contradictions and limitations that emerge in efforts at post-colonial reconciliation.
In South Africa, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a unique experiment in transitional and restorative justice as opposed to Nuremberg type trials, was set up, in order to process the legacies of apartheid. While the TRC process has been praised for advancing policies of forgiveness, it also met with opposition in some quarters as it was seen as offering amnesty over justice. There are complaints too that the TRC left a lot of unfinished business, such as failure to pursue follow-up prosecutions for those refused amnesty. The TRC also shed light on the shameful role of judges in South Africa, both in their role as facilitators of apartheid and, subsequently, in their refusal to take part in the TRC process, as Dyzenhaus’s powerful Judging the Judges, Judging Ourselves explores.
Mauritius, a British colony from 1810 until 1968 (and previously a French colony), was the first country to establish a Truth and Justice Commission relating specifically to Slavery and Indenture. Its 2011 Report recommended that reparations should be sought from the ex-colonial powers, but this has not yet been acted on.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has made reparations orders for victims, totaling around $100 million over the last decade, such as an award of $57 million for victims in the Ongwen case in 2024, in relation to crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Northern Uganda. However, in reality, only about $13 million has been paid out, indicating that “criminal trials do not equate to justice for victims.”
The issue of who can be required to make reparations is not always located in historical events; this is currently under consideration in relation to the ongoing war in Ukraine. The Council of Europe has been orchestrating efforts in this regard and has established a Register of Damage for Ukraine, which is intended to serve as the evidentiary basis for a future international compensatory mechanism, a planned Claims Commission. The UN also passed a Resolution in 2022, calling on Russia to pay reparations for the destruction caused by its war of aggression. An agreement has also been reached on the establishment of a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. Yet, despite all of these steps, it is still not clear where the funds for reparations to Ukraine will come from.
The Council of Europe generally takes an increasing interest in the issue of the processes and means necessary to overcome past conflicts. The former Advocate General for Scotland, Lord Keen of Elie, now the Chair of the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee of the Council’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), has authored a 2024 Report on questions of just and equal redress in relation to historical disputes. Similar issues are also before another of the Council’s institutions, the European Court of Human Rights. This is a rare, inter-state action commenced by Ireland against the UK in 2024, in the context of the controversial “Legacy” Act, which introduced a ban on all inquests and civil actions related to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
More recently, the President of Portugal has said that Portugal should apologise and take responsibility for its role in the slave trade. This is in stark contrast to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer who has refused to both issue an apology for and to engage in reparations discussions in respect of Britain’s past role in the slave trade.
Part 2 of this reflection will appear on this Blog tomorrow and will provide a short overview of some of the issues which arise in respect of the attempts to come to terms with the continuing legacy of historic, transatlantic chattel slavery.
Suggested citation: Lyons, Carole (2025) Dealing with the past: a local and global imperative (Part 1), SLSS Research Blog (RGU), 2025/05. Available at: https://rgu-slss.blog/?p=2179
