A/HRC/60/77 41. Attorney-at-law and partner in the law firm Hughes, Fields and Stoby, Nigel Hughes, proposed defining reparatory justice as the rectification and transformation of systemic and structural injustices created by past injustices and crimes against humanity. He stressed the need to focus on injustices rather than on legal infractions. He asserted that slave traffickers, plantation owners, their home Governments and successor States were responsible for establishing and maintaining slavery systems. He concluded that the issue of successor States’ responsibility and the demand for reparatory justice required the United Nations to forge consensus on concrete steps at the bilateral and national levels. 42. Senior expert and coordinator for reparatory justice and racial healing at the Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund, Ahmed Zanya Bugre, stated that reparatory justice was grounded in law but must be considered from the international politics angle. He questioned the resistance by some actors to reparations for Africans and people of African descent despite enslavement having been acknowledged as a crime against humanity. He asserted that the struggle for justice and reparations for Africans globally was ongoing and defined reparations as justice for harm caused and the restitution of forcefully taken cultural property. He recommended the establishment of an African committee of experts on reparations, an advisory team of legal experts and an African reparations fund, enhanced collaboration among the African Union, the United Nations and CARICOM, and engagement with the global African diaspora. 43. Assistant Professor at Seton Hall University, Britta Redwood, and Fulbright Scholar and Professor at Gonzaga University School of Law, Inga Laurent, noted that as the reparatory justice movement became global, calls for an international reparations tribunal had sharpened. They pointed out that tribunals, such as the Nuremberg Tribunal, had been established through international political will after genocides had been committed. They observed that countries liable for reparations today had not formally apologized and had actively boycotted the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. They stated that tribunals were expensive and often lacked structural or governmental accountability. They recommended that the Working Group should take three concrete actions, namely advocating for a universal periodic review mechanism for reparatory justice, for an independent expert mechanism and for the publication, under the auspices of the United Nations, of a thematic handbook on reparatory justice. 44. The fourth panel, on the theme “Economic and financial considerations”, was chaired by the Chair. 45. Programme Specialist at UNESCO, Nonso Obikili, made recommendations on economic and financial considerations, emphasizing the importance of quantifying the scale of reparations. He noted the fear surrounding the perceived magnitude of reparations payments and highlighted that beneficiaries of the trade in enslaved persons often included not only those indirectly involved but also those who had gained from it. 46. Principal at The Brattle Group, Alberto Vargas, presented the Group’s work on quantifying reparations that might be owed for transatlantic chattel enslavement. He explained that reparations extended beyond financial compensation to include restitution and satisfaction. He stressed the importance of expanding the geographical scope and timeline of calculations for reparations, noting that the figures he had provided were based on estimated harm inflicted on people of African descent over centuries, including non-economic harm, such as the loss of liberty and premature death. 47. During the ensuing discussions, Ms. Ekiudoko proposed that compensation paid to former slave owners after abolition could be redirected for reparatory justice. 48. Civil society representatives and other participants highlighted the continued impact of enslavement, including denial of land, as an entrenched form of systemic racism, preventing people of African descent in the Americas from enjoying their rights and exercising economic and political power. They called for the return or redistribution of land or for compensation for lost land, and for affirmative action measures in favour of people of African descent. They also questioned the calculations for possible compensation, which seemed to omit the gains from enslavement made by some actors, such as religious institutions, and failed to account for loss of personhood and land ownership, forced reproduction, the sale of children and cultural genocide. 8