2024年10月21から26日にかけて、英国の旧植民地など５６カ国でつくるコモンウェルス（英連邦）首脳会合（2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting）が太平洋の島国サモアで開催された。
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)
近年は英連邦の加盟国内で謝罪と賠償を求める意見が強まっていた。カリブ海諸国でつくるカリブ共同体（カリコム）は正式な謝罪や被害の修復のほか債務の帳消し、技術移転、教育支援などを要求している。英王室のウィリアム王子（現皇太子）夫妻が２０２２年にカリブ諸国を訪れた際、賠償の要求など厳しい対応を受ける場面があった。
英国は１６世紀後半以降、アフリカからおよそ３００万人を奴隷としてカリブ海諸国や南北アメリカの植民地に運んだ。砂糖やタバコを栽培させて富を築いた。過酷な環境で多くの犠牲者が出た。奴隷貿易には英王室や英政府も関与したとされる。
26日に採択された首脳声明では、声明は「大西洋横断奴隷貿易に関する賠償的正義（reparatory justice）」に言及した。そのうえで「衡平に基づく共通の将来に向けて有意義で誠実かつ敬意ある会話の時が来た」と記した。
英政府は一貫して賠償に否定的であり、スターマー首相は首脳会議後に「金銭に関する議論は全くなかった」と述べた。
🗞️ Leaders’ Statement Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2024
Heads emphasised that the Commonwealth had never retreated from respectful conversations on difficult issues, but rather has been the vanguard of matters of great importance and significance to its members. Heads noted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; the Commonwealth Charter; the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 75/123; and the acknowledgement in the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action that, “slavery and the slave trade, including the transatlantic slave trade, as appalling tragedies in the history of humanity, not only because of their abhorrent barbarism but also in terms of their magnitude, organised nature and especially their negation of the essence of the victims”, and that, “slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and should always have been so, especially the transatlantic slave trade”.
Heads, noting calls for discussions on reparatory justice with regard to the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans and chattel enslavement and recognising the importance of this matter to member states of the Commonwealth, the majority of which share common historical experiences in relation to this abhorrent trade, chattel enslavement, the debilitation and dispossession of Indigenous People, indentureship, colonialism, blackbirding and their enduring effects, agreed that the time has come for a meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation towards forging a common future based on equity. Heads further agreed to continue playing an active role in bringing about such inclusive conversations addressing these harms, paying special attention to women and girls, who suffered disproportionately from these appalling tragedies in the history of humanity.
2023年6月8日には、アメリカ・カリブ諸国での大西洋横断奴隷貿易への賠償に関する報告書がまとめられていた。報告書は、英国は１４カ国に対して１８兆ポンド（約３６００兆円）以上を支払う義務を負っていると指摘した。
🗞️ 国連人権理事会特別手続：「人種主義・人種差別・ゼノフォビア現代的形態に関する特別報告者」「奴隷制と植民地主義に根ざした人種差別に対する賠償」に関する報告書（Report of the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racial Intolerance, A/74/321, 21 August 2019）
- […] Similarly, the widely recognized intertemporal principle limits State responsibility for reparations to those acts that were internationally wrongful at the time the State committed them. 96 However, the intertemporal principle is not an absolute bar. Extensions in time for international responsibility apply when: (a) an act is ongoing and continues to a time when international law considered the act to be a violation; 97 or (b) the direct ongoing consequences of the wrongful act extend to a time when the act and its consequences are considered internationally wrongful. 98 Both of those exceptions are vital to the context of reparations related to transatlantic slavery and colonialism, given the continuing legacies of racial discrimination discussed above.
Conventional analysis of international law, including by former colonial nations, identifies a number of legal hurdles to the pursuit of claims for reparations for slavery and colonialism. Among the most salient legal hurdles identified is the intertemporal principle in international law, codified in article 13 of the articles on responsibility of States for internationally wrongful acts. The intertemporal principle stresses that a State is responsible for violations of international law only if, at the time of the violation or its continuing effects, the State was bound by the legal provisions it transgressed. Numerous States have appealed to the non-retroactive application of international law to deny that they have a legal obligation to provide reparations. For example, with regard to its genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama peoples of Namibia, Germany has stressed the intertemporal principle as a barrier to its international responsibility for both the genocide and reparations. 158 Rather than accepting that it has a legal obligation to provide reparations, Germany has argued that its obligations are “historical” and “moral”.159
First, the intertemporal principle is subject to exception, including when (a) an act is ongoing and continues into a time when international law considered the act a violation,160 or (b) the wrongful act’s direct ongoing consequences extend into a time when the act and its consequences are considered internationally wrongful. 161 That means that racial discrimination rooted in or caused by colonialism and sla very that occurred after each had been outlawed cannot be subject to the intertemporal bar. Second, the intertemporal principle does not apply to present-day racially discriminatory effects of slavery and colonialism, which States are obligated to remediate, including through reparations. The intertemporal principle cannot be said, per se, to bar all claims for reparations for racial discrimination rooted in the events and structures of slavery and colonialism. Member States, and international lawyers involved in the interpretation and articulation of international law, must do more to explore the application of the intertemporal principle’s exceptions, especially as a mechanism for overcoming overstated legal hurdles to the pursuit of racial justice.
To the extent that the intertemporal principle is understood to bar reparations for colonialism and slavery, States must recognize that the very same international law that provides for the intertemporal principle has a long history of service to both slavery and colonialism. As mentioned above, international law itself played an important role in consolidating the structures of racial discrimination and subordination throughout the colonial period, including through customary international law, which was co-constitutive with colonialism. 162 Part of the problem, then, is that international law has not fully been “decolonized” and remains replete with doctrines that prevent the reparation and remediation of the inequality and injustice entrenched in the colonial era. 163 When Member States and even international lawyers insist on the application of the intertemporal principle as a bar to pursuing reparation and remediation of racial injustice and inequality, they are, in effect, insisting on the application of neocolonial law. Legal efforts are more appropriately directed at developing international doctrine that can ensure the equal treatment and recognition of all human beings irrespective of race, and that is, in part, what is at stake in debates on reparations for slavery and colonialism.