By Towncrier Editorial Desk
Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama has called for the creation of global reparations panels on political strategy, cultural restitution and legal pathways, as Accra seeks to turn a landmark United Nations resolution on the trafficking of enslaved Africans into practical international action.
The announcement was made at the High-Level Consultative Conference on the Next Steps to the Landmark UN Resolution on the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans, held in Accra from June 17 to 19, 2026. The official event platform describes the conference as an effort to translate UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/80/250 into “a common framework of actionable commitments for a just and equitable world order.”
The resolution was adopted on March 25, 2026, and, according to Ghana’s official conference portal, passed with 123 votes. It recognises the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel enslavement as the gravest crime against humanity, while calling for dialogue on reparatory justice and restitution of cultural property, artefacts, manuscripts and archives.
Speaking in Accra, Mahama said the world had reached a point where recognition must be converted into “meaningful and sustained action.” His central message was deliberately calibrated: present generations may not be personally responsible for atrocities committed centuries ago, but they are responsible for the world those atrocities helped create.
“History does not ask us to inherit guilt, but it asks us to inherit responsibility,” Mahama told delegates.
Mahama announced three global panels to support the next phase of the process: an Advisory Panel on Reparatory Justice, an Expert Panel on Restitution of Cultural Artefacts, and a Legal Panel for Reparatory Justice. The advisory panel is expected to provide strategic direction, the restitution panel to support the return of cultural properties and archives, and the legal panel to explore pathways consistent with international law, human dignity and justice.
Ghana’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, opened the high-level session by placing the conference in Ghana’s historical and diplomatic context. He said Ghana was “transitioning from being a crime scene to a sanctuary for healing and reparatory justice,” a reference to the country’s forts, castles and slave-route sites, including Elmina, Cape Coast, Assin Manso and Osu.
The timing of the conference was also significant. The three-day programme was designed to culminate on June 19 with a Juneteenth observance at Christiansborg Castle, also known as Osu Castle. The official conference site describes the observance as the first extra-territorial Juneteenth commemorative event outside the United States, linking African American emancipation memory to Ghana’s slave-route geography and the wider Africa-diaspora reparatory justice agenda.
Mahama’s address broadened the reparations debate beyond compensation. He said any serious roadmap must include truth-telling, education, research, memorialisation, restitution of cultural heritage, legal pathways, development partnerships, and the active participation of the African diaspora.
He also stressed that reparatory justice must be gender-responsive. The President said the experiences of enslaved women and girls — including exploitation, family separation, forced reproduction and historical erasure — cannot remain footnotes in the global narrative. Any framework for truth-telling, remembrance and redress, he argued, would be incomplete if it failed to recognise their specific suffering and leadership.
The conference drew African and Caribbean leaders, ministers, international institutions, legal scholars, civil society organisations, cultural actors and members of the African diaspora. Interventions from Liberia, Rwanda, The Gambia, Jamaica, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Barbados and others pushed the discussion toward archives, funds, education, development finance, restitution and legal mechanisms.
In his closing remarks, Mahama said the UN resolution was not the end of the process but the start of a new phase in the global pursuit of justice. The test, he said, would not be the speeches delivered in Accra, but the willingness of governments and institutions to sustain the work ahead.
Official references: Ghana Ministry of Foreign Affairs event portal: https://reparations.mfa.gov.gh/. Official conference broadcast/video reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CPAjV8HBrE.
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