By LaBode Obanor
In international diplomacy, moral language is abundant, but moral courage is scarce. That distinction was on full display this past week when the United States voted against a recent resolution at the United Nations recognizing the transatlantic slave trade as among the gravest crimes against humanity. Washington’s explanation was flawlessly tidy, eloquently lawyerly, and entirely predictable. Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Dan Negrea, in his statement, called the resolution “highly problematic.” He added that the United States “does not recognize a legal right to reparations for historical wrongs that were not illegal under international law at the time they occurred.” and “…strongly objects to the resolution’s attempt to rank crimes against humanity in any type of hierarchy”
On paper, the U.S statement reads like a careful defense of the international legal order, but, upon close examination, like something else entirely: a masterclass in how superpowers acknowledge history while insulating themselves from its consequences.
Let us begin with the legal argument, the centerpiece of the U.S. position. The claim is that the transatlantic slave trade, however abhorrent, was not illegal under international law at the time it was practiced. Therefore, contemporary legal frameworks should not be retroactively applied to generate obligations such as reparations. This invokes the well-established doctrine of nullum crimen sine lege, no crime without law.
From a legal standpoint, the U.S. argument is precise, orderly,and neat, adhering closely to established doctrines.
This approach provides a logical and technically defensible explanation for declining reparations, relying on the fact that certain acts were not codified as crimes under international law at the time they occurred. However, when examined through a moral lens, the reasoning reveals serious defects and weaknesses. The focus on legality strips the argument of ethical substance, reducing accountability to a question of timing and technicality rather than justice. In effect, the moral justification for the U.S. position becomes so insubstantial that it nearly disappears, leaving only the formal structure of legal reasoning behind.
Furthermore, the U.S. argument rests on a premise that is technically defensible but philosophically fragile: that legality at the time somehow tempers accountability now. By that logic, one might conclude that atrocities are only condemnable if they were inconveniently illegal when committed. It is a comforting position for those who wrote the laws in the first place. Yet the modern international system routinely departs from this rigid formalism when it suits broader normative goals. For example, the Holocaust was prosecuted and memorialized not because every element was neatly codified in advance, but because the world collectively recognized that some acts violate principles deeper than laws.
The same moral logic underpins the development of jus cogens norms, peremptory principles from which no derogation is permitted. Slavery is widely understood to fall within that category today. To insist that its historical legality forecloses present accountability is less a defense of law than a narrowing of it.
The second pillar of the U.S. position is its opposition to reparations. Here, the language shifts from doctrine to caution. Washington does not recognize a legal right to reparations for historical actions.
The underlying implication of that statement is that, the United States is willing to acknowledge historical wrongs, but only insofar as doing so does not entail any financial or material responsibility. In other words, recognition is permissible and even encouraged, provided it remains free of cost and obligation.
This is where the argument begins to strain under its own weight. What is framed as a technical objection to legal liability is widely understood as a refusal to engage the consequences of a system whose effects remain structurally embedded across continents. The transatlantic slave trade was not a discrete historical episode, but an economic architecture that redistributed wealth, distorted development, and left enduring inequalities in its wake.
To acknowledge the system while denying any form of material or structural redress is to separate cause from consequence with surgical precision.
Defenders of the U.S. argue that reparations are complex, impractical, and politically fraught. These are all true. Complexity, however, is not an adequate response. Instead, it is a description. The real question is, does complexity justifies inaction? On that question, the U.S. answer appears to be yes, provided the complexity carries financial implications.
Then there is the third argument: the rejection of a “hierarchy of atrocities.” At first glance, this sounds like a principled stand against comparative suffering. No atrocity should be elevated above another; all victims deserve equal recognition. However, this logic is an elegant sentiment, and one that dissolves under minimal scrutiny. International law, as it stands today, already distinguishes between categories of harm.
For example, genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. These offences are not interchangeable; instead, they reflect qualitative judgments about scale, intent, and systemic impact. According to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, it refers to acts committed with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected group such as a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Crimes against humanity, codified in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, encompass widespread or systematic attacks directed against civilian populations, including enslavement, deportation, and torture, whether in war or peace, while War crimes, grounded in the Geneva Conventions, regulate the conduct of armed conflict and prohibit acts such as targeting civilians or mistreating prisoners of war.
These distinctions are intentional, deliberate legal judgments about the gravity, structure, and consequences of human suffering. The transatlantic slave trade, spanning centuries and continents, institutionalizing the enslavement of millions and reshaping the economic and social foundations of the modern world, cannot be reduced to a generic category of historical wrongs. To insist otherwise is not a defense of equality among victims of atrocities, but an evasion of the weight of history.
The United States’ invocation of “no hierarchy” in its objection to the United Nations resolution does not, as it suggests, uphold a sense of moral equilibrium. Rather, it serves to blur the lines of moral clarity, sidestepping the unique gravity and enduring consequences associated with the transatlantic slave trade. By refusing to acknowledge the magnitude of this atrocity, the U.S. position does not embody neutrality; instead, it represents a deliberate choice to lessen responsibility precisely where it is most warranted.
This rhetorical approach allows for the avoidance of accountability, diluting the imperative for meaningful redress and recognition of historical wrongs.
If the legal arguments feel familiar, it is because they are part of a broader pattern. The United States has long practiced a selective engagement with international norms, embracing them when they reinforce its strategic interests and hedging when they impose constraints. A behavior that reflects a broader pattern in which the “champion of global order” invokes international norms as instruments of influence but resists them when they impose reciprocal obligations. It champions accountability in some contexts and discovers the virtues of legal caution in others. This is not unique to Washington, but it is especially visible given its self-appointed role as a global defender of justice and human dignity.
Consider the broader record. The U.S. is an outspoken advocate for human rights, yet it maintains a cautious distance from institutions that might exercise jurisdiction over its own conduct. It promotes rule-based order, yet insists on interpretive flexibility when those rules circle back. In short, it prefers a system in which norms are binding, provided they bind others more tightly than itself.
The pattern that emerges, yet again, is not a denial of history. No one seriously disputes the brutality or scale of the transatlantic slave trade.
The disagreement lies in what follows from that acknowledgment. Should recognition carry obligation? Should moral clarity translate into material consequence? Or can the past be cordoned off, acknowledged in language but insulated from liability? For the United States, the answer appears to favor insulation. The vote, this week, signals a preference for acknowledgment without obligation, history without reparations, and principle without price. It is a defensible position in narrow legal terms; however, it is a less comfortable one in the court of global opinion.
None of this is to suggest that the path forward is straightforward. Reparations, in any meaningful sense, raise difficult questions of scope, mechanism, and fairness. Who pays? To whom? In what form? And through what institutions?
These questions require deep examination and careful thought. But difficulty is not an excuse for disengagement. If the international system is to maintain any claim to moral coherence, it must grapple with the legacies that shaped it. It requires a willingness to move beyond procedural defenses and engage the substance of the problem. The United States, for all its power and influence, finds itself at a familiar crossroads. It can continue to rely on legal arguments that protect it from immediate obligation while eroding its normative credibility, or it can begin to align its commitment to justice with a more consistent application of the principles it so often invokes.
In the end, the question is not whether the transatlantic slave trade was among the gravest crimes in history; the historical record answers that with brutal clarity. The question is what the modern world is prepared to do with that knowledge. A system of international norms that acknowledges injustice but recoils from consequences is not a system of justice but one of convenience. And convenience, however eloquently defended, has never been the foundation of legitimacy.
LaBode Obanor is a Social Justice Advocate and president of the League for Social Justice, an organization dedicated to promoting equality and defending human rights.
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