After more than a decade of relentless advocacy that has steadily shifted global and public opinion, the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC) is bringing its campaign for reparatory justice for the transatlantic slave trade directly to the United Kingdom this week, with a four-day diplomatic and outreach mission running from July 13 to 16.
Organized in partnership with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study, the trip is designed to do more than just restate the Caribbean region’s longstanding demands. According to a public statement released by the Institute of the Black World (IBW), a key supporting organization for the mission, the delegation will focus on deepening existing strategic partnerships, expanding public awareness of the harms of chattel slavery, and mobilizing broader civil society engagement behind the reparations agenda.
Leading the high-profile delegation is CRC Chair Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, joined by a cohort of senior regional and global reparations leaders. The group includes Dorbrene O’Marde, head of the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Support Commission and CRC Vice Chair; Eric Phillips, another CRC Vice Chair who leads the Guyana Reparations Committee; Professor Verene Shepherd, who also holds a vice chair role on the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination; Barbados’ Ambassador to CARICOM David Comissiong; and Dr. Ron Daniels, convener of the U.S.-based National African Reparations Commission.
The UK mission comes at a pivotal moment for the global reparations movement, marked by a string of historic breakthroughs that have pushed the issue from a marginalized demand to a core global human rights conversation. Since the CRC was founded 12 years ago, the body has led a sustained regional campaign of advocacy and public education that has kept demands for reparatory justice anchored on the international policy agenda.
Momentum has accelerated sharply in recent years. In 2024, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting held in Apia, Samoa, CARICOM secured a landmark agreement: Commonwealth leaders formally acknowledged that the time has come for open, truthful and respectful dialogue to build a more equitable future that addresses the legacy of slavery. This marked the first time the bloc had explicitly backed such a conversation, representing a major diplomatic win for the Caribbean campaign.
Public opinion in the UK, one of the key former colonial powers that profited from the transatlantic slave trade, is also shifting toward supporting redress. IBW cited a 2025 national poll conducted by The Repair Campaign, which surveyed 2,000 UK adults. The data showed 63% of respondents now back a formal government apology to Caribbean nations and the descendants of enslaved Africans, a four percentage point increase from 2024 polling. Support for financial compensation also rose by four points over the same period, reaching 40% of UK adults.
Global institutional progress has also moved rapidly this year. In March 2026, the United Nations General Assembly passed a groundbreaking resolution led by Ghana that formally categorized the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans and the system of chattel slavery as the gravest crime against humanity in modern history. That resolution set the stage for a high-level global consultative conference on reparations held in Accra, Ghana this past June, where government representatives, international organization officials, legal scholars and civil society leaders gathered to draft a shared framework for advancing reparatory action. The conference was widely described as a historic turning point for Africans and people of African descent worldwide.
Just weeks before the UK mission, CARICOM’s own regional leaders reinforced their commitment to the cause. Earlier this month, CARICOM heads of government formally approved an updated version of the bloc’s core policy document, the CARICOM Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice: A Manifesto for the Coming Enlightenment. The revised framework frames reparations as an urgent global human rights imperative, and leaders backed a suite of new initiatives to advance the regional agenda.
The CRC’s UK visit is intended to build on this wave of progress, cementing cross-border alliances and ensuring Caribbean demands for redress for the harms of slavery remain a top priority in global political and civil society discourse.