The statement wasn’t about “condemning slavery”, it was “Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime Against Humanity”.
The EU voted against it because:
“First, the use of superlatives in the context of crimes against humanity is not legally accurate, such as the use of “gravest” in the title and throughout the text, which implies a hierarchy among atrocity crimes, when no legal hierarchy between crimes against humanity exists. It risks undermining the harm suffered by all victims of these crimes and lacks legal clarity crucial for ensuring accountability. We firmly reject introducing ambiguity in this respect.”
“Second, the selective inclusion of lengthy, historical, and contentious references to regional jurisprudence and selective and unbalanced interpretation of historical events - such as in Preambular Paragraphs 21 and 23 - is at odds with accepted UN practice, as well as the stated universal and forward looking objective of this initiative. It risks creating divisions when unity is both necessary and achievable. The role of the General Assembly is not to substitute itself to the academic debate amongst historians.”
"Third, we are also concerned by certain legal references and assertions that are either inaccurate or inconsistent with international law. This includes suggestions of a retroactive application of international rules which was non-existent at the time and claims for reparations, which is incompatible with established principles of international law. The principle of non-retroactivity, a fundamental cornerstone of the international legal order, must be strictly upheld. References to claims for reparations also lack a sound legal basis. Any framework for reparatory justice must be grounded in existing multilateral instruments. "
Pretending that not voting “yes” was refusing to condemn slavery is extremely disingenuous.
Classic European rules lawyering to smugly dip out of doing something they never wanted to do anyway. They could have written the resolution themselves, to their exact specifications, and they would still find a convenient technical reason to avoid making any kind of stand against imperialism, past or present.
All of a sudden, Europe now cares about international law?
Europe is the only place that does care about international law.
you are a hypocrite nazi clown
Lol
Netanyahu hiding in a Berlin Bunker like 😳 hope the germans dont know I’m here
Exaclty thats why we condemn Iran for defending itself, and for being attacked. Also of course the actions of Israel are only problematic, we have to watch the genocide from afar, then decide if it was just. Ah the shamelessness. Meanwhile lets host as many of their war criminals as possible.
Slavers will always make excuses for not condemning slavery.
And non-thinkers will accept propaganda headlines and never employ any critical thinking.
Oh noooo the slaver doesn’t like me
If only they actually meant that. Seems they forgot that they use nothing but superlatives when it comes to crimes they now politicially benefit from, like holocaust. Should I provide quotes? But yes Afd makes the same argument for holocaust, go figure.
Sounds to me like the EU is just saying “all lives matter” in legal jargon. Tripping over pedantics because they don’t want to be seen as responsible for their predecessors actions even though they hold plenty of southern hemisphere countries regularly responsible for actions not committed by their current govt.
“Black Lives Matter” is a movement that has traction because right now black people are being killed by cops. “All Lives Matter” is insensitive because it’s ignoring the urgent problem that’s affecting black people now. The trans-Atlantic slave trade ended centuries ago. There’s no urgency to address something that has been over for that long.
You might see what they’re doing as being pedantic, but I think you can acknowledge that the enslavement of Africans was a terrible crime against humanity without requiring a competition to see which atrocity gets the #1 spot. There’s nothing about what the EU said that comes close to saying they don’t want to take responsibility for what their ancestors did (although having said that, it’s ridiculous to ask that someone ever take responsibility for something their ancestors did).
You can “whattabout” this all you want, but that doesn’t mean that the declaration was a good one. It was a shitty one and shouldn’t have been put forward at all.
Country that still has slaves votes against condemning slavery
52 abstentions.
Today I am embarrassed and ashamed to be Australian.
West refuses
The hell it did. My country refused nothing.
Mexico? Panama? Belize? Guatemala? Brasil? Peru?
Just keep naming countries. Aside from two among like 30, the “West” condemned slavery; because of course.
In this context “West” means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world
I hope in day black folks in the US get reparations.
I wouldn’t hold my breath. While I fully support it if it ever happens, I doubt the US will ever even acknowledge the harm it caused.
As a Canadian, I’m disappointed our government abstained.
Calling something the “gravest crime” seems kind of strange. So genocide is better? Mass rape? Why compare?
The Transatlantic slave trade lasted for centuries and included both genocide and rape and way more
Yeah but Hitler did a pretty good speedrun too.
The headline is wrong because Western countries did not refuse to condemn slavery—they opposed or abstained from a specific UN resolution due to concerns about reparations and legal wording, not because they support slavery.
Western countries did not refuse to condemn slavery — given an opportunity to do so they simply didn’t or opposed it
???
Slavery has not been abolished in the USA, so why would they condemn it?
Haha, true. Everyone in the world is a slave on a corporate plantation.
You could certainly argue that debt slavery makes anyone who isn’t a capitalist a slave, but I mean:
except as a punishment for crime
Slavery, even outside of debt slavery, continues to exist in the USA.
Every country that has billionaires also has slaves. The problem is the ruling class. Greed is universal.
Idk, i think it should have reparations, like, if for hundreds of years, robbing, killing, enforcing servitude of tens of millions of people for the enrichment of a few countries should make these countries pay. It gave these countries the backbone to todays “welfare states”, the industrial revolution was kickstarted on the cotton and sugar fields that these enslaved people worked, etc, etc, etc.
I don’t care about the legality, the wording, the whatever, it seems pretty clear to me that this should happen, and them giving this response shows that basically they don’t care and never cared.
I don’t agree with them, I’m just saying the headline is wrong.
