UN General Assembly: transatlantic slave trade “the gravest crime against humanity”

On 25 March 2026, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution classing the transatlantic chattel slave trade as the greatest crime against humanity in recorded human history, with 123 votes in favor, 52 abstentions (some more surprising than others), and 3 votes against–namely, from the United States of America, Israel and Argentina.

The ban on slavery has always been a jus cogens, peremptory norm of international law. Here, the key legal distinction is that between slavery as such and slave trade–specifically, the “transatlantic chattel slave trade” which saw millions of Africans displaced to the Americas, primarily by European maritime powers and their affiliates, over the course of four centuries.

As such, the resolution has more to do with how we, collectively, look at history from a legal standpoint than with anything going on today. In other words, by virtue of this resolution, the international community (retroactively) recognizes the transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity ever committed, paving the way for requests of reparations, formal apologies and the repatriation of national heritage from former colonial powers to their former colonies, now sovereign states and equals under international law.

Portugal, the country that started it, abstained, proving once again that it still has a long way to go before it can withstand an honest look in the mirror.