3071-The political economy of new slavery

Geraldine Van Bueren 241
United States’. 11 Yet, the Supreme Court in Korematsu versus United
States ruled at the time, that such internment was constitutional. 12
This form of comparative historical jurisprudence is necessary if
reliance is to be placed on a legal precedent approach. However, there
is a second approach which can succeed even against those who assert
that the problem with claiming reparations for the African slave trade was
that most of it was not in breach of international law or domestic law.
This second approach overcomes the principal legal objection to a claim
against reparations for slavery and the slave trade of retrospectivity.
The international legal system is still based largely upon state consent
and states are legally able to agree among themselves, even in the
absence of any judicial action, to the principle of reparations for slavery
and to evolve a mechanism for restitution. There is nothing to prevent
states deciding among themselves on how to consider the issue of
reparations or to appoint a body to decide to whom, by whom, for
what, as well as the issue of the form of reparations and quantum
(the amount of compensation to be paid).
The worrying point for some states would be that in departing from
such fundamental principles of international law, it leaves them more
vulnerable to claims for other historical human rights violations including
colonialism. However, this vulnerability is significantly diminished
if the slave trade were acknowledged as a form of piracy. The alternative,
a lack of acknowledgement for wrongdoings, which risks social amnesia,
is much worse.
Having made a case for reparations based on the two complementary
arguments of viewing the slave trade as piracy and motivating the international
community of states to decide to move towards setting up a
body to oversee reparations for the slave trade and slavery, we now have
to look into some of the practical details which often cause objections
to any form of reparations across such a long time span.
To whom, by whom and for what?
The first question is who is eligible for reparations for the slave trade.
If we accept that reparations can be paid for violations which occurred
in previous centuries but whose effects can still be felt today, then we
have to question why reparations should be limited to Africa and the
descendants of Africans. What distinguishes the African slave trade from
the slave trade in South America, for example? 13 Vattel even justified
such slavery, arguing that if it was to convert Indians to Catholicism
then such treatment was in accordance with international law. It is at
least arguable that for some of the populations in South America and