Caribbean nations seek reparations for slavery trade from The Hague
The 14 nations argue the barbaric legacy of their past affects them to this day and eye court action for reparations from colonial powers
William Hague, the British foreign secretary, called the slave trade an indefensible barbarity, "brutal, mercenary and inhumane from its beginning to its end" in a biography he wrote of a famed abolitionist in 2008.
Now 14 Caribbean countries that once sustained that slave economy want Hague to put his money where his mouth is.
We are saying that, ultimately, historical claims have been resolved politically, although I think we will have a good claim in the ICJ
Spurred by a sense of injustice that has lingered for two centuries, the countries plan to compile an inventory of the damage they believe they suffered and then demand an apology and reparations from their former colonial rulers: Britain, France and the Netherlands.
To present their case, they have hired a firm of London lawyers that this year won compensation from Britain for Kenyans who were tortured under British colonial rule in the 1950s.
Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807, but its legacy remains. In 2006, Tony Blair, then prime minister, expressed his "deep sorrow" over the slave trade; the Dutch social affairs minister, Lodewijk Asscher, made a similar statement in July.
Britain has paid compensation over the abolition of the slave trade once, but that was to slave owners, not their victims.
Britain alone transported more than three million Africans across the Atlantic, and the effect of the trade was vast.