Professor Justin Hansford, Biden appointee to the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFAD), called on the UN to address two issues: demanding reparations for every Black Americans descendant of slavery and bringing an end to what he terms the “continuation of slavery” in the United States.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) organized the second session of the PFPAD from May 30 to June 2 at the UN headquarters in New York.
The theme of the second session is “Realizing the dream: A United Nations Declaration on the promotion, protection and full respect of the human rights of people of African descent”. ”
Howard University Professor Hansford argued in his opening remark that the current legal framework, predominantly shaped by white scholars and lawyers from the past, may not adequately address the needs for justice for people of African descent.
“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.”
Hansford advocated for $5 million payments to be made to black Americans alongside fellow academics from the University of Pittsburgh and Columbia University.
“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,” said Hansford.
“I propose that today we create a new community of legal thinkers that’s not limited to lawyers but includes anyone who is passionate about justice.”
He called for a “process of apology and reparation — not on their terms, but on our terms.”
“And we come together and demand that many of the states in this room that have benefited from the legacy of our oppression start the process of apology and reparation – not on their terms, but on our terms, he concluded.
WATCH:
…The address included a call for people of color to “propose our own vision of justice, and implement that justice, as part of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent.”
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 4, 2023
Daily Mail reported:
Hansford, a rising star of the critical race theory movement who draws on the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr, spoke at the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, a group that was created in 2021.
The ‘special tribunal’ was formally proposed by David Comissiong, representing Barbados, a Caribbean island state.
Hansford quickly endorsed the plan. He later told DailyMail.com that many African and Caribbean UN members were behind the scheme.
The US mission to the UN, which is headed by ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a Biden administration appointee who is black, does not officially support the tribunal.
But Hansford said US diplomats at the mission had been ‘supportive overall.’
Thomas-Greenfield also spoke at the event, saying African-American families often lived in polluted neighborhoods. She grew up in Louisiana ‘near so-called cancer alley,’ she added.
‘Let us dismantle structural racism, brick by brick,’ said the career diplomat.
‘Let’s leave our children a cleaner, fairer, more just world.’
Read more here.
