UN judge urges UK to address slavery reparations

Patrick Robinson has said payment to countries impacted by transatlantic slavery is ‘required by law’.

A UN judge sparked national outrage on Tuesday after statements made about UK slavery reparations.

Patrick Robinson, a judge at the international court of justice, said the UK can no longer ignore growing calls for reparative payments over the long-standing cultural, social, and economic impacts of transatlantic slavery.

‘They cannot continue to ignore the greatest atrocity, signifying man’s inhumanity to man. They cannot continue to ignore it.

Reparations have been paid for other wrongs and obviously far more quickly, far more speedily than reparations for what I consider the greatest atrocity and crime in the history of mankind: transatlantic chattel slavery,’ Robinson said.

The value of said reparations is estimated to be around £18.8tn, but Robinson has said this is still an ‘underestimation’ of the damage caused by the slave trade. He suggested that in order to address these figures, payments should be made over a longer period of time, between 10 and 25 years.

It’s no surprise that public response has been mixed — although that may be somewhat of an…