Patrick Robinson, a judge for the U.N.'s International Court of Justice (ICJ), called on Tuesday for the United Kingdom and many other countries to pay reparations for the transatlantic slave trade.
Robinson made his statements to The Guardian newspaper just one day before the International Day of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, an event where he will speak on Wednesday at London City Hall.
According to Robinson, the U.K. cannot avoid turning its back on its past of slavery and should submit to the new wave of historical revisionism that demands compensation for countries that fell victim to the slave trade. "They can no longer ignore the greatest atrocity, which means man's inhumanity to man. They can no longer ignore it. Reparations have been paid for other evils and obviously much faster than reparations for what I consider the greatest atrocity and crime in human history: transatlantic slavery," Robinson said, addressing the U.K.
Robinson, a Jamaican national, is part of the team that prepared and presented a report in June on potential reparations to be paid by countries that benefited from the transatlantic slave trade. The report, described by the Guardian as the most comprehensive on international reparations, identifies compensation from 31 countries.
The report, of Jamaican origin and signed by the consultancy Brattle, was presented at the University of the West Indies, an educational institution with a presence in 15 Caribbean island countries.
$26 billion from the United States
According to this study, the United Kingdom must pay $24 billion to the governments of several countries whose existence is a direct result of the colonial era. The report also lists the U.S. with $26 billion to pay in reparations. Portugal, Spain, France and the Netherlands are also on the list with at least $5 billion. No non-Western countries are on the list, although a number of African nations also benefited from the transatlantic slave trade.
In his interview, Robinson spoke about the high amounts of compensation he is seeking for Caribbean governments. Robinson recalled that "these calculations do not refer to a period of five or ten years. They span the entire duration of transatlantic slavery, that is, hundreds of years. In addition, no repairs have ever been paid. So the calculations start from the first day of transatlantic slavery, that is, hundreds of years; And that alone explains the high numbers."
Robinson said it would be best to reach political and diplomatic agreements between the parties, but did not rule out legal enforcement of this this demand for reparations. "The tide is turning, the political tide, the global tide is moving," Robinson repeated in his interview, saying he firmly believes that Western governments will give in to this demand.
