A petition is to be handed to King Charles III by Jamaica over slavery reparations, seeking legal clarification on historic slavery and reparatory justice issues.
The petition asks the King, as Jamaica’s head of state, to refer three questions to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: whether the seizure, forced transportation and enslavement of Africans in Jamaica was lawful under English law; whether those acts breached international law; and whether the UK has a legal obligation to provide a reparatory remedy.
Speaking to Times Radio, Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, said: “I’m here representing the people of Jamaica with a mandate from parliament to seek reparatory justice.”
She added: “We are not asking for money. We are not stating a figure or an amount… What we want right now is the answers.”
The Jamaican government says the legal process is intended to establish a basis for considering future steps, rather than making an immediate financial demand.
The debate over reparatory justice is rooted in the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, during which an estimated 12 million Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic to the Americas over several centuries.
Following the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act, the British government provided compensation to former slave owners, while the debt raised to fund those payments was only fully cleared by taxpayers in 2015.
Grange said Jamaica’s petition reflects a wider ‘global trend’ on reparatory justice, pointing to growing international efforts to address the historical impact of slavery.
In March 2026, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recognising the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel slavery as the “gravest crime against humanity”, further intensifying global discussions around historical accountability and reparatory justice.
ℹ️ Times Radio, BBC News
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