By James T. Brooks
ACCRA, GHANA – President Joseph Nyuma Boakai, Sr. has called for a united global effort to transform the recently adopted United Nations Resolution A/RES/80/250 on the Transatlantic Slave Trade into a practical framework for truth, justice, healing, and institutional repair. He declared that future generations will judge the world by the courage of its actions rather than the eloquence of its declarations.
Delivering the keynote address Thursday at the two-day High-Level Consultative Conference in Accra, Ghana, which focused on implementing the landmark UN resolution, President Boakai stated that recognizing the trafficking and enslavement of Africans as among the gravest crimes against humanity represents a defining moral moment.
Addressing heads of state, representatives of the African Union, CARICOM, CELAC, the Global African Diaspora, United Nations agencies, civil society organizations, and development partners, President Boakai praised Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama and the people of Ghana for convening the gathering. He described the host nation’s shores as historic, marked by the painful memories of millions of Africans forcibly taken across the Atlantic.
The Liberian leader declared that the gathering must ensure the resolution becomes a functional framework for institutional repair rather than just a statement of historical recognition. He noted that more than five centuries after the first victims were trafficked, and two centuries after the slave trade was formally abolished, the UN resolution’s adoption on March 26, 2026, acknowledges both the horrors of the past and the enduring consequences that continue to shape societies today.
President Boakai stated that Liberia’s own history demonstrates how the effects of slavery extend far beyond economic losses, encompassing generations of social, cultural, psychological, and political impacts. He argued that meaningful reparatory justice must transcend financial compensation to include truth-telling, reconciliation, identity restoration, cultural healing, education, institution-building, and stronger social cohesion. Offering Liberia’s experience as evidence, he noted that justice, healing, and reconciliation are inseparable from sustainable development and lasting peace.
To implement the resolution, President Boakai proposed five key priorities. First, he called for the development of a common African position and implementation framework in collaboration with CARICOM and diaspora organizations, backed by a coordinated roadmap with clear timelines. Second, he advocated for the establishment of an African Union–United Nations Expert Commission to design a Global Reparatory Justice Mechanism.
Third, the Liberian leader emphasized the need to combat misinformation and historical erasure by strengthening the teaching of African history, preserving archives, and supporting universities throughout Africa and the diaspora. Fourth, he stressed the importance of returning stolen cultural artifacts, and fifth, he called for creating development partnerships aimed at addressing persistent inequalities rooted in slavery and its aftermath.
President Boakai observed that although the immense suffering caused by slavery cannot be measured solely in financial terms, the transatlantic slave trade, forced labor, and resource extraction generated enormous wealth that contributed significantly to underdevelopment across Africa and the Global South. He urged the international community to pursue partnerships founded on shared responsibility and mutual respect to address these enduring disparities.
The President clarified that the pursuit of reparatory justice is not intended to assign personal guilt to present generations for the sins of the past. Instead, he emphasized that it is a call for understanding, empathy, and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths.
President Boakai called on nations worldwide to join Africa and the diaspora in a common commitment to healing, stressing that humanity must ensure the dehumanization and racialized enslavement of any people never again finds refuge in institutions, economies, or the collective conscience.
Warning against allowing the historic resolution to fade into history, President Boakai urged that this be remembered as the moment when the world chose truth over silence, justice over hesitation, and moral courage over the comfort of the status quo.
Concluding his address, the Liberian leader urged delegates to leave Accra united in purpose and committed to building a future founded on equity, shared prosperity, and common humanity. He noted that if they succeed, generations yet unborn will remember that they chose not simply to remember history, but to help shape it.