Tag Archives: descendants

‘Reparatory justice’ key to ending racism against Africans and their descendants

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Doing so is key to dismantling systemic racism that is rooted in legacies of slavery and colonialism, it said.

Actions include formal apologies, truth-seeking, memorialisation and education measures, medical and psychosocial support, as well as compensation.

Past and present linked

For the most part, the report found that that amid some rollback of commitments to racial justice, measures taken by States, businesses, religious groups, universities, museums and others remain limited. 

“To deliver reparatory justice, States and other actors must implement a comprehensive approach that includes reparations in various forms,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. 

“To be truly effective, this approach must squarely consider the web of links between the past and the present – at the individual and societal levels, in all areas of life – in order to dismantle unjust structures and systems designed and shaped by the past.”

Consider local contexts

Mr. Türk cautioned against a “one-size-fits-all approach” as reparatory justice should respond to the demands of affected communities.  

“Initiatives and processes should be grounded in history and local context, respond to evolving demands of communities, and centre the specific experiences of women of African descent in particular,” he said.

The report recommends that Africans and people of African descent must guide the design and implementation of these measures through meaningful, inclusive and safe participation. 

Reviews, restitution and research

It also highlights initiatives already underway. For example, some countries have reviewed public spaces to identify, remove or contextualise statues and place names linked to persons who were involved in the transatlantic slave trade.

Museums in several European countries are also taking steps to address their collections’ links with the past.  

The restitution of cultural heritage is continuing, such as the return of so-called “Benin bronzes” – centuries’ old sculptures, plaques and other items looted from what is now Edo state in Nigeria. 

Additionally, some academic institutions have carried out or funded external research into their own history, issued apologies, advanced educational opportunities for communities and created memorials. Some business enterprises also have taken clear steps to acknowledge their links with the past. 

“Claims for compensation have been lodged before courts in multiple jurisdictions, and associated legal arguments have bolstered wider public movements and fostered political pressure for change,” the UN rights office added. 

The report calls for further research and policy proposals on broader structural and systemic issues, including in the areas of climate and environmental justice, as well as reforms to address the shortcomings of development aid and international financial and governance architecture.  

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Dino-killing asteroid’s impact on bird evolution

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Human activities could change the pace of evolution, similar to what occurred 66 million years ago when a giant asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, leaving modern birds as their only descendants. That’s one conclusion drawn by the authors of a new study published in Systematic Biology.

Cornell University Ph.D. candidate Jacob Berv and University of Bath Prize Fellow Daniel Field suggest that the meteor-induced mass extinction (a.k.a. the K-Pg event) led to an acceleration in the rate of genetic evolution among its avian survivors. These survivors may have been much smaller than their pre-extinction relatives.

“There is good evidence that size reductions after mass extinctions may have occurred in many groups of organisms,” says Berv. “All of the new evidence we have reviewed is also consistent with a Lilliput Effect affecting birds across the K-Pg mass extinction.” Paleontologists have dubbed this phenomenon the “Lilliput Effect” — a nod to the classic tale Gulliver’s Travels.

“Smaller birds tend to have faster metabolic rates and shorter generation times,” Field explains. “Our hypothesis is that these important biological characters, which affect the rate of DNA evolution, may have been influenced by the K-Pg event.”

The researchers jumped into this line of inquiry because of the long-running “rocks and clocks” debate. Different studies often report substantial discrepancies between age estimates for groups of organisms implied by the fossil record and estimates generated by molecular clocks. Molecular clocks use the rate at which DNA sequences change to estimate how long ago new species arose, assuming a relatively steady rate of genetic evolution. But if the K-Pg extinction caused avian molecular clocks to temporarily speed up, Berv and Field say this could explain at least some of the mismatch. “Size reductions across the K-Pg extinction would be predicted to do exactly that,” says Berv.

“The bottom line is that, by speeding up avian genetic evolution, the K-Pg mass extinction may have temporarily altered the rate of the avian molecular clock,” says Field. “Similar processes may have influenced the evolution of many groups across this extinction event, like plants, mammals, and other forms of life.”

The authors suggest that human activity may even be driving a similar Lilliput-like pattern in the modern world, as more and more large animals go extinct because of hunting, habitat destruction, and climate change.

“Right now, the planet’s large animals are being decimated–the big cats, elephants, rhinos, and whales,” notes Berv. “We need to start thinking about conservation not just in terms of functional biodiversity loss, but about how our actions will affect the future of evolution itself.”