Why Jamaica is seeking $10bn in reparations from the UK

This is the first time a British Commonwealth state will use this legal route “for the cause of reparatory justice”, the Jamaican delegation said, as the visit to London kicks off on Monday.

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King Charles is Jamaica’s head of state, as the country is yet to transition from a constitutional monarchy to a republic.

What is the latest petition all about, and how will the UK respond.

What are Jamaica and the UK’s relations like.

Jamaica’s relations with the UK stem back to 1655 when it became an English colony. Hundreds of thousands of enslaved African people toiled in Jamaica under more than 300 years of British rule and faced brutal conditions.

In August 1962, after Jamaica became independent, it established diplomatic ties with the UK and also became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, an international political association of 56 member countries made up of former British colonies.

While Jamaica has been independent since 1962, it has continued to recognise the British monarch as its head of state. But in recent years, calls to ditch the British king as Jamaica’s head of state have grown.

In March 2022, Jamaican activists, as well as prominent professors, politicians and other leaders, rejected a visit by the duke and duchess of Cambridge, calling on the United Kingdom to apologise and pay reparations for hundreds of years of slavery.

In an open letter published before the British royal couple’s arrival, 100 Jamaican leaders had said they saw “no reason to celebrate” the Queen’s coronation “because her leadership, and that of her predecessors, have perpetuated the greatest human rights tragedy in the history of humankind”.

In December 2024, the Jamaican government also tabled a constitutional amendment bill in parliament to replace the British king as the head of state.

What is Jamaica’s latest petition about.

In June last year, Jamaica formally raised a petition addressed to the British monarch seeking slavery reparations.

On Monday, Jamaica’s Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport said its minister, Olivia Grange, is expected to lead the country’s delegation “to advance Jamaica’s push for reparations for the African ancestors who suffered under hundreds of years of enslavement” in London.

The ministry added that it would meet with the British Museum to discuss “the repatriation of cultural artefacts taken from Jamaica”.

The petition will ask the king, Jamaica’s head of state, to answer three questions on the transatlantic slave trade to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the Caribbean island’s highest court of appeal based in London.

Under the Judicial Committee Act of 1833, the UK monarch has the authority to refer legal matters to the court for an advisory opinion.

The questions include: whether the enslavement of Africans in Jamaica was legal under English common law, whether it violated international law, and whether the UK has a legal obligation to provide a remedy for the harm caused by slavery.

Olivette Otele, a historian and distinguished research professor of the Legacies and Memory of Slavery at SOAS University of London, told Al Jazeera that the king’s role in the process was symbolic.

Have other countries also sought reparations from the UK.

In recent years, several Commonwealth nations have been demanding that the UK pay reparations for its role in the transatlantic slave trade.

At a meeting in Samoa in October 2024 for the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), Commonwealth leaders said they would proceed with “plans to examine reparatory justice” for the slave trade.

At the summit, Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis had said it was time for the Commonwealth to seek “justice” for the brutal history of slavery.

The UK’s involvement in the slave trade began in 1562, and by the 1730s, the UK was the biggest slave trading nation in the world, according to the UK parliament’s website.

The website adds that British ships transported more than three million Africans, mainly to the UK’s North American and Caribbean colonies.

In June 2023, a report by consulting firm Brattle Group, titled Reparations for Transatlantic Chattel Slavery, argued that the UK owes reparations to 14 Caribbean countries.

These include Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago.

But UK leaders have so far resisted engaging in discussions about paying reparations to the countries that received trafficked slaves, and where their descendants now live.

In October 2024, former UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said that the British government would not be paying for slavery and would also not apologise for it.

The British monarch has also not issued a formal apology for the crown’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.

Have other European colonial powers apologised for slavery.

In March, even when the UN General Assembly voted to recognise the transatlantic slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity”, many European nations, including the UK, abstained from voting in favour of the resolution.

How is the UK likely to respond to Jamaica’s latest petition.

During colonial rule, British merchants enslaved and forcibly transported 600,000 to 1 million Africans to Jamaica between the 17th century and the early 19th century.

Otele said she would be surprised if the new British Labour Party-led government decides to respond favourably to the requests made by the Jamaican government, but highlighted that the latest petition is nevertheless significant.

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