Reparations Conference 2026:
Virtual Sessions
Links to join the 2026 UK Reparations Conference virtually. We will also be recording several other sessions, which will be made available on YouTube in due course.
Main Hall Sessions
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Kojo Asare Bonsu (Global Afrikan Peoples Parliament)
Join: https://parliament-uk.zoom.us/j/62339506686
Passcode: 824980
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Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP (Chair, APPG for Afrikan Reparations) | Rita Remi-Judah (Co-Clerk, Quakers Reparations Working Group) | Jacqui McKenzie (Partner, Leigh Day) | Eleanor Shearer (Senior Research Fellow, Common Wealth)
Join: https://parliament-uk.zoom.us/j/62339506686
Passcode: 824980
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Onyekachi Wambu (Special Projects Director, AFFORD) | Esther Xosei (Executive Director, Stop The Maangamizi/ Maangamizi Educational Trust) | Hon. Dr. Ralph E. Gonsalves (Former Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines) | Nana Kobina Nketsia V (Paramount Chief of Essikado Traditional Area, Sekondi, Western Region of Ghana) | The Rt. Hon. Ms Diane Abbott MP (APPG for Afrikan Reparations) | Lord Marvin Rees OBE (Former Mayor of Bristol)
Join: https://parliament-uk.zoom.us/j/62339506686
Passcode: 824980
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Reflections from conference participants.
Join: https://parliament-uk.zoom.us/j/62339506686
Passcode: 824980
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with contributions from Professor Verene Shepherd (Vice-Chair, CARICOM Reparations Commission and Vice-Chair, UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination) | Kenniss Henry (National Co-Chair, N’COBRA) | Jasmine Mickens (Director, Global Africa Reparations & Restitution Fund)
Join: https://parliament-uk.zoom.us/j/62339506686
Passcode: 824980
Joining passcode: 824980
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Breakout Sessions - 11:55
11:55 - 13:10
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The legal terrain for reparatory justice has shifted markedly since last year’s conference. In March 2026, the UN General Assembly adopted a Ghana-led resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel enslavement the “gravest crime against humanity” and calling for reparatory justice, including restitution, apologies and compensation. This session will ask what legal strategies are currently being deployed, which precedents and rulings strengthen the case for repair, why formal recognition at UN and treaty-body level has not translated into UK government action, and what a Commission of Enquiry would need to be empowered to do if law is to be a genuine engine of repair rather than a site of continued refusal.
Join: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82149931186?pwd=nzJTa7WY3u7BuscW8udeZQkFVp2NBG.1
Passcode: 171244
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Join: https://parliament-uk.zoom.us/j/62339506686
Passcode: 824980
The legacy of colonialism and empire continues to shape global inequalities in the fight against climate change, and this year that argument has moved decisively onto the intergovernmental stage. In June 2026, the African Union and CARICOM jointly adopted a 19-point reparations plan that explicitly links reparatory justice to climate: it calls for a Global Reparations Fund and comprehensive debt relief and cancellation for affected countries. This session will ask how economies and economic structures need to be repaired or reimagined through a reparations lens to deliver a genuinely Just Transition, and what political and other alliances - including with the AU-CARICOM mechanism and the COP31 process - are needed to make that happen.
Chair: Priya Lukka (Political Economist)
Dr Gail Bradbrook (Co-Founder, Extinction Rebellion) | Laura Kotzur (Doctoral Researcher, Free University of Berlin) | Cllr Tyrone Scott (Global Majority Greens) | Dr Devon Taylor (President, Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement) | Sarri Bater (Founder & Director, OpenEdge) | Makmid Kamara (Founder, Reform Initiatives)
13:20 - 14:25
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Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85192284164?pwd=koKmOtaQWvMlLoxzkvAQ6VEfIGhBAr.1
Passcode: 572586
Enslavement, colonialism, apartheid and racial domination did not only dispossess African peoples of land, labour, resources and sovereignty. They fractured families and communities, disrupted identities and cultures and created hierarchies among African peoples. This session explores healing as an integral part of the reparations agenda. It will create a facilitated space for honest dialogue about fractures within and between African communities and consider how healing, reconciliation and the repair of intra-African and Africa-diaspora relationships should be incorporated into the Terms of Reference of a Commission of Enquiry on Reparations.
Chair: Onyekachi Wambu (Special Projects Director, AFFORD)
Nova Reid (Author & Thought Leader) | Dr Ron Daniels (Founder & President, Institute of the Black World 21st Century) | Karen Carberry (Visiting Lecturer, University of Oxford) | Eugene Skeef (Director, Umoya Creations) | Dr Ahmed Zanya Bugre (The Global Circle)
14:10 - 15:30
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Join: https://parliament-uk.zoom.us/j/62339506686
Passcode: 824980
Reparations concern not only what was taken from African peoples, but also what was said about them. Slavery and colonialism relied upon narratives portraying Africans as inferior, violent, primitive or incapable of governing themselves. Newspapers, literature, scholarship and popular culture helped circulate these ideas and legitimise exploitation, dispossession and colonial rule. This session will examine the historical and contemporary role of media in constructing narratives about Africa and African-descended peoples and explore what reparative journalism might mean. Crucially, the session will generate practical proposals for the Terms of Reference of the proposed Commission of Enquiry on Reparations.
Chair: Nadine White (Founder, Black Current News)
Nels Abbey (Writer & Broadcaster) | Marcus Ryder MBE (CEO, Film & TV Charity) | Joseph Harker (Senior Editor, Diversity and Development, The Guardian) | Onyeka Igwe (Associate Professor of Contemporary Art, University of Oxford) | Kim Poole (Executive Director, Teaching Artist Institute) | Shubham Jain (Research Fellow, Centre for Sport & Human Rights)
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Join: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82149931186?pwd=nzJTa7WY3u7BuscW8udeZQkFVp2NBG.1
Passcode: 171244
This session starts from a claim that has moved from activism into international law: that the racism experienced today is not simply analogous to enslavement and colonialism but is a direct, continuing consequence of them. In August 2026, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination gave that claim formal weight, finding in General Recommendation No. 40 that the harms of the transatlantic slave trade “continue to manifest” in present-day racial disparities. This session will ask what organisations are currently doing - and what still needs to be done - to close the distance between recognising racism’s colonial roots and building institutional and policy change.
Chair: Weyman Bennett (Co-convenor, Stand Up To Racism)
Ife Thompson (Founder, BLAM UK) | Kimberly McIntosh (Windrush Policy Lead, Action for Race Equality) | Gaynel Curry, (Chair, UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent) | Eric Phillips (Chairman, Guyana Reparations Committee & Vice-Chair, CARICOM Reparations Commission)
With thanks to our Conference Partners
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