JUSTIN HANSFORD’S OPENING REMARKS TO PFPAD2
excerpt:
“Why can’t those grassroots citizens begin to determine their own terms for what reparations should look like? . . . .
So whenever reparations is framed not as justice, not as repair. . . but as charity, as a gift, the terms will always be self serving. It wouldn’t make sense for a bank robber to determine how much of the heist he will return or a selective panel of experts to dole out the stolen money according to its own vision of what's fair.
So this is perhaps the most appropriate legal question to ponder - crimes against humanity, governed by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted in 1988 is one perhaps interesting legal concept that we could apply to what happened to our people. Genocide, determined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 shortly after the Holocaust is another interesting legal claim that could be brought. But so far we have left it to the scholars of the past, the lawyers of the past, the white scholars, white lawyers, to determine the bounds of our legal imagination, to determine the narrow structures that we will use to determine what justice looks like for our own people.
So I come to you today with a novel proposal, that we begin to think our own thoughts, propose our own vision of justice, and implement that justice, as part of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent.
So I also propose today that we create a new Bar Association, including lawyers and non-lawyers, to discuss what it means to be repaired in 2023 for crimes that have been done to us and continue to be done to us for over 500 years. . . .
So for your consideration, Madam Chair, I propose that today we create a new community of legal thinkers that is not limited to lawyers, but includes anyone who is passionate about justice. And we come together and demand that many of the states in this room that have benefitted from the legacy of our oppression start the process of apology and reparation, but not on their terms, but on our terms.
Thank you.”
SIPHIWE BALEKA’S COMMENTARY
The first example of Justin Hansford’s charge to “think our own thoughts, propose our own vision of justice, and implement that justice, as part of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent” is the MANDATE FROM THE AFRO DESCENDANT PEOPLE ISSUED TO THE PERMANENT FORUM ON PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT TO REQUEST AN ADVISORY OPINION FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE ON THEIR STATUS AS PRISONERS OF WAR UNDER THE GENEVA CONVENTION. This is yet another interesting legal claim, like the ICC and Genocide examples that Justin Hansford mentioned, that is perhaps the most promising at this moment.
Many of the opening statements at the 2nd Session urged PFPAD and the United Nations system to “concrete action.”
