The report, conducted by UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, calls on countries involved in transatlantic slavery to consider reparations for descendants of slaves.
The secretary-general expressed in his report that no country has yet to comprehensively account for the legacy of the mass enslavement of African people for more than 400 years.
“Under international human rights law, compensation for any economically assessable damage, as appropriate and proportional to the gravity of the violation and the circumstances of each case, may also constitute a form of reparations,” the report said.
It is estimated that nearly 30 million people were forcibly removed from Africa as part of the transatlantic slave trade. The United States alone had nearly four million enslaved people, and Black Americans – among other groups – have not received reparations for state-sanctioned violence done against them.
This UN report comes after decades of calls for reparations across the African diaspora. Legislative steps have been taken in the United States, with some states like California making a serious push for reparations to become a reality.