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Call for papers AU ECHO 2025 Edition

The payment of reparations, including reparatory justice, for historical crimes and mass atrocities committed against Africans and people of African descent has always been part of the priorities of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now the African Union (AU) since the inception of the OAU in 1963. 

The OAU officially inaugurated the 12-Member Group of Eminent Persons(GEP) at a meeting in Abuja, Nigeria on 28th June 1992. The mandate of the GEP was to develop a political agenda and review the issue of reparations in relation to the damage done to Africa and its Diaspora by the trans-Atlantic slave trade, slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism. The First Pan-African Conference on Reparations, sponsored by the GEP and the Commission for Reparations of the OAU, as well as the Federal Government of the Republic of Nigeria, was convened from 27th – 29th April 1993 in Abuja, Nigeria. The outcome document of the conference is the Abuja Proclamation on Reparations. The Abuja Proclamation represented a key moment in the contemporary history of African reparations efforts, because it served as a catalyst for revitalizing reparation movements, and was the first common position taken by the political leadership of Africa. The AU joined the United Nations (UN) at the World Conference agai