UK Votes Against UN Racism and Slavery Reparations Resolution

United Nations Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada al-Nashif delivers a speech during the opening day of the 51st session of the U.N. Human Rights Council at the U.N. offices in Geneva on Sept. 12, 2022. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

The United Kingdom has voted against a resolution from the United Nations Human Rights Council to pay reparations from the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

On Friday, a resolution titled “From rhetoric to reality: a global call for concrete action against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,” was tabled before a 47-strong U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva.

The UK joined the United States, France, Germany, and Ukraine in voting against the resolution. A total of 31 countries voted in favour of the call, including China, India, and Pakistan.

The resolution prescribes comprehensive measures for the U.N.’s blueprint to combat racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia based on pledges made at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.

Durban Declaration

The resolution reiterates the Durban Declaration’s claim (pdf) that the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans and colonialism were grave violations of international law and that states must make reparations proportionate to the harms committed.

The UK’s Human Rights Ambassador, Rita French, delivered a statement on Friday explaining the country’s vote on the racism resolution.

French said that the UK remains “resolute in our commitment to combating all forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia and related intolerance whether that be at home or abroad.”

“Nonetheless, we have a number of concerns with this text. We do not agree with the multiple references to the Durban Conference, given the historic concerns over antisemitism,” she added.

General view at the opening of the UN Human Rights Council's 44th session in Geneva on June 30, 2020. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

Last year, a total of 38 countries boycotted the 20th anniversary of the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, citing concerns of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias.

“We do not agree with claims made in this resolution that states are required to make reparations for the slave trade and colonialism, which caused great suffering to many but were not, at that time, violations of international law,” said French.

“Moreover, these claims divert focus from the pressing challenges of tackling contemporary racism and global inequality – which are global challenges affecting all regions,” she added.

In 2021, the United States said that the resolution endorses “overbroad restrictions on freedom of speech and expression.” It also rejected the resolution’s call for “former colonial powers” to provide reparations.

Modern Slavery

Historian and author Zareer Masani has long argued that paying reparations for historic crimes is both impractical and unethical and criticised the countries that voted for the reparations resolution.

“The numbers [of] the majorities are made up by post-colonial countries where regimes actually thrive on blaming colonialism for their own failings and shortcomings. I think that is the tendency within the U.N.,” Masani told The Epoch Times.

“It’s quite right that countries like the UK and the U.S. resist that,” he said.

On the call for reparations, Masani said that it’s difficult to prove who has a claim from such a long time ago. Furthermore, it would be costly to taxpayers and it would even be paid by British people who are themselves are descendants of slaves.

“What [the reparations] don’t cover, and should cover, is the fact that there was and still is global slavery, and no one is going to get reparations for that,” he said.

“There were slave trades all around the world, some of which the British stamped out. And there is modern slavery where more than 10 million people are enslaved in Africa every day, and even more in China, and no one is actually claiming reparations for those people,” said Masani.

Set up in 2006 to replace the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, the U.N. Human Rights Council meets three times a year, but has faced widespread criticism for letting countries with poor human rights like China become members.

On Oct. 6, for example, the Human Rights Council rejected a move to debate China’s ongoing human rights abuses.

Leaders from the United States, UK, and Canada called for a debate on the Chinese Communist Party’s suppression of the Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang after a U.N. report documented possible crimes against humanity in the region.

Andrew Thornebrooke contributed to this report.