Reparations for Slavery in International Law: Transatlantic Enslavement, the Maangamizi, and the Making of International Law

by Katarina Schwarz

Overview

Reparations for Slavery in International Law examines the case for contemporary redress for the harms and legacies of transatlantic enslavement from a legal perspective. The book critically evaluates the history of transatlantic enslavement as well as the evolutions in international law that justified and perpetuated the exploitation of African peoples and people of African descent. It offers an analysis of the requirements of state responsibility, assessing the impact of time on claims for redress for historic injustices. A new theory of reparatory justice is proposed, which is responsive to both the underpinning principles and the modalities of redress in international law. This book considers the emerging practice of reparations in transitional justice and the relevance of these frameworks in cases of widespread historic injustice, while upending orthodox understandings of the international legal frameworks relevant to case for reparations. In so doing, it opens new space for the reconsideration not only of the international legal claim for reparations for slavery, but also the moral and political case.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197636398
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/30/2022
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	9.43(w) x 6.33(h) x 0.95(d)

About the Author

Katarina Schwarz is Associate Director in the Rights Lab, and Associate Professor in Antislavery Law and Policy in the School of Law at the University of Nottingham. Her research addresses key challenges at the intersection of human exploitation and the law, from the historic to the contemporary. Dr Schwarz currently leads the Rights Lab's Law and Policy Programme, working at the interface of research and policy to deliver evidence-based guidance for antislavery action.

Table of Contents

Note on language
Table of cases and instruments
Introduction: The reparations debate and international law
1. From the 'transatlantic slave trade' to the maangamizi
2. The maangamizi and the making of international law
3. Adjudicating the 'past': the impact of time on reparability
4. Towards a theory of reparatory justice
5. Expanding understandings of reparatory justice through multiple modalities of redress
6. The causal chains connecting historical enslavement and contemporary redress
7. Reparatory justice in transition
Conclusion: The reparations debate beyond international law
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"...works like this fuel the necessary debate among ethicists, lawyers and politicians." — Max D Winthrop, Gazette

"The author develops a theory of reparations, observing that the international legal system is not a neutral system based on the rule of law, justice, or equality; the bedrock of the system is centuries of enslavement, colonialism, and imperial expansion." — William E. Butler, Jus Gentium

"Written in clear, accessible language and exploring a wide range of sources, Reparations updates the language and concepts surrounding the reparations debate; and provides balanced and nuanced analyses of its legal arguments, contextualized in terms of the law's limits." — Amanda Byer, Irish Jurist

"Katarina Schwarz's book on slavery reparations is probably the most comprehensive treatment of the subject in recent years." — ZaöRV 83

From the Publisher