ABSTRACT
The question of whether or not reparations should be paid for the harm caused by the transatlantic slave trade is not a new one. In the United States of America, there have been several attempts to provide or secure reparations ever since the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the consequent liberation of the slaves in the southern states. The intensity of the campaigns for reparations has ebbed and flowed over the years, with the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries witnessing a renewed vigour in these demands. 1987 saw the founding of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) to press for reparations specifically for African descendants living in the United States (N’COBRA) and in 2000 another organisation with similar aims, the Reparations Co-ordinating Committee was formed by Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree and Randall Robinson, author of the influential book The Debt, on the subject of reparations. Most significantly, for the purposes of this chapter, in 2002 a number of class action claims for damages were brought in the American courts (hereafter referred to as the ‘US Litigation’), with Judge Norgle handing down a judgment in the consolidated proceedings in July 2005.1 The US Litigation comprised, in part, claims for restitution with the causes of action being, inter alia, various torts2 and unjust enrichment. This followed successful action in the 1990s against Swiss banks, German industry and European insurers by survivors, and the families of victims, of the Holocaust.
