Commonwealth leaders have agreed “the time has come” for a conversation about making amends for slavery, as well as backing a major Oceans Declaration and calling for “urgent, ambitious and collective” action on climate change.
Discussions over slavery reparations have brewed on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa, with some Caribbean and African countries arguing that nations that benefited from colonialism should help countries devastated by it.
The United Kingdom has ruled out paying any financial reparations or issuing a formal apology, but Keir Starmer’s government has opened the door to discussing other “reparatory justice” — a broader term which can encompass both symbolic gestures and practical assistance.
Multiple sources familiar with the meeting said there had been protracted negotiations over the wording on reparatory justice, with some Caribbean leaders frustrated by what they saw as UK intransigence on the issue.
The final communique issued by CHOGM calls for reparatory justice and says many Commonwealth countries share “common historical experiences” relating to the “enduring effects” of the slave trade, Indigenous dispossession and blackbirding.
It also calls for a “meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation” about addressing the harms caused by that legacy, and “forging a common future based on equity”.
The outgoing secretary-general of the Commonwealth, Patricia Scotland, told the final CHOGM press conference that Commonwealth countries had “come together” to discuss a fraught question, saying the organisation would take “exactly the same approach” it took in the past when it tackled “difficult” subjects like apartheid in South Africa.
But she did not say exactly what shape or form those conversations could take, or whether the Commonwealth would try to facilitate them in any shape.
Sir Keir said earlier in the week that he wanted to look “forward not back” and focus on future challenges rather than get bogged down in debates around responsibility for colonialism.
A draft of the leaders’ communique leaked to the BBC earlier this week also pledged to “prioritise and facilitate further and additional research on the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and chattel slavery” – but those words did not appear in the final document.
Commonwealth leaders also used their final statement in the wake of the meeting to call for ramped-up action on climate change.
The document says leaders “emphasised the importance of transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly, and equitable manner” and wanted to make sure the world “accelerated action during this critical decade to achieve global net zero emissions by 2050”.
Ahead of the COP29 summit in Baku they also called for a “scaling up [of] climate action, ambition and financing”, saying developing countries needed at least $100 billion a year to deal with the impacts of climate change.
And they endorsed a major new Oceans Declaration which commits Commonwealth nations to expanding marine protected areas, working to curb emissions to stop the ocean from heating rapidly, and intensifying efforts to reduce the impact of plastics and microplastics in the sea and waterways.