Edward Fitzgerald KC, Ulele Burnham and Harj Narulla instructed by Jamaica in slavery reparations petition filed with King Charles III
On 7 September 2026, the Government of Jamaica filed a petition on slavery reparations with the British monarch, King Charles III, a move described as “an unprecedented and historic moment in the global fight for reparatory justice”.
The petition asks King Charles – as Jamaica’s Head of State – to refer three specific legal questions to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council:
- Whether the seizure of Africans, their forced transportation to Jamaica and enslavement there as chattel, was ever lawful under English law;
- Whether the seizure of Africans, their forced transportation to Jamaica and enslavement there as chattel, was, and is, a breach of international law; and
- Whether there is a legal obligation on the part of the UK to provide a reparatory remedy to the people of Jamaica.
Edward Fitzgerald KC, Ulele Burnham and Harj Narulla are representing the Attorney General of Jamaica and are instructed as Counsel by Lawrence Cartier of Keystone Law.
A delegation of high-profile government representatives has travelled from Jamaica to London for the Petition filing.
Jamaica’s Petition has been endorsed by the Heads of Government of all CARICOM countries. Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, also expressed his support in an address to the Jamaican parliament last month, and in correspondence with the Government of Jamaica.
The Petition comes at a time of growing international momentum around reparations for transatlantic chattel slavery. On 25 March 2026, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a landmark Resolution RES/80/250, which recognised transatlantic chattel slavery as the “gravest crime against humanity”. On 31 August 2026 the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (“CERD”) issued General Recommendation No. 40 focusing on reparations from the perspective of racial discrimination, entitled Reparatory justice for the harms and continuing consequences of colonialism, the trafficking in enslaved Africans across the Atlantic and other routes, and racialized chattel slavery.
Having received the Petition, King Charles will now consider whether to refer the matter to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for determination. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council advises the monarch on matters of law. It also acts as the final court of appeal for UK overseas territories and some Commonwealth countries.
Section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act of 1833 confers a special power on the King to refer questions of legal and constitutional importance to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for their advice. It is this unique jurisdiction that the Jamaican Attorney-General is invoking on behalf of the people of Jamaica.
