Reparations Totaling US$108 Trillion Owed to Victims of Transatlantic Chattel Slavery, says Report

MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica, June 8, 2023 – Countries which profited from participation in the grotesque and unlawful practice of Transatlantic Chattel Slavery, TCS, have been assessed to owe some US$108 Trillion in Reparation for their part in the Transatlantic slave trade and the resulting Chattel Slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean.

The countries owing reparations include Britain, France, Portugal, The Netherlands, Brazil, and the United States of America.

A Report entitled “The Report on Reparation for Transatlantic Chattel Slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean” (TCS), which quantifies the reparations due to the descendants of enslaved persons who suffered death and untold hardships as a result of chattel slavery across the Americas and the Caribbean.

Judge Patrick Robinson, a Former Honorary President of the American Society of International Law and a current member of the International Court of Justice presented the report which quantifies for the first time, the reparations due to the descendants of enslaved persons and their descendants across the Americas and the Caribbean.

The report was presented this morning by H.E. Judge Patrick Robinson, a former honorary president of the American Society of International Law and a current member of the International Court of Justice.

It was sponsored by the American Society of International Law in collaboration with the University of the West Indies, through the Centre for Reparation Research and the PJ Patterson Institute for Africa-Caribbean Public Advocacy was unveiled at the University of the West Indies at Mona.

In its assessment for reparations, the Brattle group which quantified the sum each country is to be paid,  identified a number of headings  under which payment would be required. These include: Loss of Life; Uncompensated labour; Loss of liberty; Personal injury; Mental pain and anguish and Gender based violence.

According to the report,  Britain which devised, presided over and profited from the enslavement of people in 14 countries that it had colonised under the system of Transatlantic Chattel Slavery, TCS, will be required to pay US $108 trillion in reparations. Of that sum, US $9.5 trillion is to be paid to Jamaica.

Spain has a reparatory debt of US$17-trillion, of which Jamaica is entitled to be paid of which it is to pay Jamaica US102 billion dollars.

France’s debt has been calculated at US$9-trillion, while  Portugal’s sum stands at US$20-trillion, of which US $4 trillion is owed to Brazil.

The Netherlands is required to pay reparations amounting to  US $5 trillion, of which US$3- trillion is to be paid to Suriname, while US $52-billion is to be paid to Guyana.

The historic valuation undertaken by the Brattle Group, an internationally recognised group of valuators, indicates that the United States has been assessed to owe former enslaved workers US $26 trillion for its participation in Transatlantic Chattel Slavery between 1776 and 1865.

Haiti came up for special mention in the report. Because following the Haitian Revolution, Haiti became a republic in 1804. A monumental achievement in the history of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean.

In the report, France is required to return to Haiti, the sum of 90-million francs, about 1.4 billion US in today’s money, that it extracted from Haiti as compensation to plantation owners who lost their “property” in the form of enslaved persons.This is on the basis of the principle of unjust enrichment.

The sum to be returned by France to Haiti, is reflected as part of the reparation that France owes to Haiti. “This one of the saddest moments in the history of Transatlantic Chattel Slavery,” the report says.

“The problems that Haiti has suffered over the years, beyond question, is partly; a result of this unjust extraction of wealth from a newly independent country. This is part of the explanation for the difficulties being experienced today by Haiti,” the report noted.

It took Haiti 122 years to pay this sum of money to France.

The Report estimated that the harms caused by TCS were inflicted over the span of four centuries on about 19 million Africans kidnapped and transported to the Americas and Caribbean, including those born into slavery.

The total harm caused by TCS is calculated under the following heads of damages for the enslavement period: loss of labor income and loss of life (in the sense of the economic value of a lifetime’s labor), loss of liberty, personal injury, gender-based violence-including rape and forced pregnancy-and psychological damages.

For the post-enslavement period, the Report calculates reparations using the measure of wealth disparity, which is a useful tool that explains lack of access on the part of the descendants of the enslaved to many services, including health, education and housing.

In light of this, reparations have been set out for 31 countries in the post enslavement period.

The post emancipation reparations to be paid by Britain amounts to US$2-trillion dollars, of which Britain is to pay Jamaica US$564-billion dollars.

Part of the audience gathered at the Regional Headquarters of the University of the West Indies, at Mona, to listen to the report on Reparation for Transatlantic Chattel Slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean (TCS), which quantifies the reparations due to the descendants of enslaved persons

This Report is historic because it quantifies for the first time the reparations due to the descendants of the enslaved right across the Americas and the Caribbean, and was accomplished with the advice and guidance of an Advisory Committee which comprised Judge Patrick Robinson and Professors Chantal Thomas, Verene Shepherd, and Robert Beckford. It also benefited from the research done by UWI students Samantha Campbell and Mikel Hylton.

It acknowledges that the quantification of reparations in the Report is not intended as a full measure of compensation for TCS.

Justice Robinson explained that the concept of ‘satisfaction’ is considered as a form of reparation, that is required when the damage caused by wrongful conduct is not made good by restitution, or compensation.

The Advisory committee believes that the form that satisfaction should take, is a matter that should be left to the country entitled to reparations, in consultation with the former slave holding country.

The report concludes that It is not surprising that the reparatory sums owed are close to or exceed the current GDP of the enslaving countries.

The Report’s calculations measure the harm inflicted on millions of persons, and sometimes entire nations, for hundreds of years, and therefore one year’s GDP, which measures the annual economic output of a country, is not the best yardstick to place the results in context, it says.

Instead, the Report compares the magnitude of the estimates with national wealth and the cumulative GDP over the past several decades.

After concluding that the reparatory sums determined by Brattle Group reflect the enormity of the grotesque and unlawful practice of TCS, the Advisory Committee decided to recommend to countries entitled to reparations that they consider, in consultation with the former slave-holding countries, that reparations may be paid over a 10-year period, a 15-year period, a 20-year period, or a 25-year period. (WiredJA)