Reparations: French law offers a legal loophole to descendants of enslaved Africans

In August 2022, a small delegation from the island of Martinique showed up on Cavehill Campus to attend the Conference on Reparations hosted by the GAC (Global African Congress). Much to the surprise of those present, Maître Alain Manville, attorney representing the MIR Martinique (International Movement for Reparations) and the CNR Martinique (National Reparations Committee) in a handful of reparatory justice cases explained the following.

There's a law commonly known as the "Taubira Law" passed in 2001 in France. The bill was carried by French Guiana's Christiane Taubira and it acknowledges both historical events (the transatlantic slave trade and the ensuing enslavement of kidnapped Africans and of their descendants) as crimes against humanity. 

In theory, given the information the various Reparations attorneys gathered over the past two decades, any individual who can trace their family history back to at least one enslaved African or enslaved descendant of African in the Americas is potentially entitled to turn to France for reparations.

To help hold France accountable for these crimes against humanity, visit www.esterenjustice.org

to fill-in the form and join the lawsuit!

The reason is that many territories in the Americas (including but not limited to independent countries, states, colonized territories...) have been at some point or other under French rule during the slave trade and slavery era, which makes the French state answerable to them for crimes which were only possible because French law of the day enabled these crimes.

And yet, French courts keep dismissing reparation cases for "reasons" in spite of having laws that state they shouldn't while the other crime affecting a large number of families and their descendants which no one would dare try to minimize or dismiss and which falls into this very category has led the governments of countries involved to hold trials, even when the accused where on the last leg of their journey on this earth. The difference between these two crimes? The victims and their descendants who got their day in court were never categorized as black.

To bend such a trend of evident bad faith, Maître Manville and his estimed colleagues reckon that two things must happen:

1/Have the last/highest jurisdiction of French law snowed under a huge number of plaintiffs within the framework of an international class-action lawsuit *

2/Should that highest jurisdiction still try inventing excuses to deny the claim, take the case to the only jurisdiction above all French jurisdictions: the E.U. Justice Court for Human Rights.

Knocking on the E.U. court's door with a huge case file in hand is one way to get that instance to have a closer look at the Taubira Law, according to the collective of orgs managing this operation.

The E.U. justice court could very well set a precedent by establishing formally a right to reparations for descendant of enslaved Africans based on the Taubira law.

The collective of nonprofit orgs behind the Ester en Justice move is working tiresslessly to collect "powers" from all eligible parties, regardless of language or nationality as unity is indeed our best bet if our calks for reparations are to ever be answered everywhere!

#reparations #caribbean #justice