A study on the quan­tifi­ca­tion of repa­ra­tions for Transat­lantic Chat­tel Slav­ery (TCS) in the Amer­i­c­as and the Caribbean has found that tril­lions of dol­lars are owed to these coun­tries as a re­sult of the slave trade.

The re­port was launched here on Thurs­day iden­ti­fy­ing at least 31 coun­tries where repa­ra­tions are due as a re­sult of the slave trade that was abol­ished in 1838.

For­mer hon­orary pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can So­ci­ety of In­ter­na­tion­al Law and the project’s ini­tia­tor, Jus­tice Patrick Robin­son, speak­ing at the launch of the re­port at the Mona cam­pus The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) said that Britain is re­quired to pay 14 coun­tries a sum of US$24 tril­lion.

The re­port notes to as­sess the repa­ra­tions that are due, it must be es­tab­lished that the in­juries or harm suf­fered by the en­slaved are the con­se­quence of wrong­ful con­duct by those who car­ried out TCS.

The eco­nom­ic es­ti­ma­tions were made in the con­text of the harms ex­pe­ri­enced dur­ing the en­slave­ment and post-en­slave­ment pe­ri­ods. The cal­cu­la­tions in the re­port were done by a group of US econ­o­mists from The Brat­tle Group, guid­ed by a team of lawyers, his­to­ri­ans, and his­to­ry stu­dents.

Robin­son said that for Spain the amount owed is es­ti­mat­ed at US$17 tril­lion and the Unit­ed States is re­quired to pay ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$26 tril­lion for its prac­tice of TCS from 1776 to 1865, while France is re­quired to pay ap­prox­i­mate­ly nine tril­lion US dol­lars and Por­tu­gal US$20 tril­lion to Brazil, which is al­so re­quired to pay about four tril­lion dol­lars in re­spect to its prac­tice of TCS in Brazil from 1822 to 1888.

The amount for The Nether­lands is es­ti­mat­ed at five tril­lion dol­lars of which three tril­lion should be paid to Suri­name and an es­ti­mat­ed $52 bil­lion to Guyana.

Robin­son said that the ag­gre­gate sum of repa­ra­tions to be paid by all for­mer slave-own­ing states to­tals US$107.8 tril­lion.

The re­port stat­ed that the to­tal harm es­ti­mat­ed from en­slave­ment is be­tween US$100 tril­lion and US$131 tril­lion and Robin­son said the com­mit­tee spent an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od de­lib­er­at­ing on whether the fig­ures should be re­duced but lat­er agreed that it should re­main on the ba­sis of the fig­ures re­flect­ing the enor­mi­ty of the un­law­ful prac­tices of TCS.

“Nonethe­less, it de­cid­ed to rec­om­mend to coun­tries en­ti­tled to repa­ra­tions that they con­sid­er, in con­sul­ta­tion with the for­mer slave-own­ing coun­tries, that repa­ra­tions may be paid over a 10-year pe­ri­od, a 15-year pe­ri­od, a 20-year pe­ri­od, or a 25-year pe­ri­od,” he said, adding that such an arrange­ment should be se­cured through a bind­ing agree­ment.

Robin­son ac­knowl­edges that the re­port does not ad­dress the earn­ings of plan­ta­tion own­ers, banks, in­sur­ance com­pa­nies, and oth­er en­ti­ties that prof­it from TCS as the group was still work­ing to ac­cess the rel­e­vant da­ta to sort out the sum re­lat­ing to this.

KINGSTON, Ja­maica, Jun 9, CMC

CMC/2023