Opening Statement:
Descendants of United States Chattel SlaveryTM, or DUSCSTM, are a legally distinct group. We are not the African diaspora broadly. We are not represented by the African Union or covered by international reparations frameworks designed for other populations. We are the specific descendants of people subjected to racialized chattel slavery as codified and enforced within the United States. Our claim is unique. Our documentation is specific. Our case is legally grounded in the domestic laws that created our condition and have never remedied it.
Why DUSCSTM Are Distinct:
DUSCSTM are not represented by the African Union framework, which addresses the transatlantic slave trade and African nations. We are descendants of people trapped in America's domestic chattel slavery system. We inherit the specific legal disabilities that were never abolished — partus sequitur ventrem (the doctrine that children born to enslaved mothers are enslaved).
The Legal Arguments:
DUSCSTM inherit specific legal disabilities created by U.S. domestic law that were never abolished. Partus sequitur ventrem, Virginia's 1662 statute, made slavery hereditary through the maternal body. This doctrine was never repealed by name in U.S. law. Its logic persists today through the child welfare system, which separates Black families at double the rate of white families. The 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, contains an exception clause permitting involuntary servitude as criminal punishment. Black men are incarcerated at 5.6 times the rate of white men and forced to work in prison for wages from zero to less than one dollar per hour. This is the 13th Amendment exception clause in operation today. H.R. 40, the Commission to Study the Impact of the Institution of Slavery on African Americans and Provide Recommendations for the Formation of a National Commission on Reparations for Slavery, has been pending in Congress for 37 years without a floor vote. There is no domestic remedy. Every court that has received a DUSCS reparations claim has dismissed it without reaching the merits.
The UN Resolution Context:
On March 25, 2026, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution A/80/L.48, declaring the transatlantic slave trade "the gravest crime against humanity" and calling for reparations. The United States voted against this resolution, formally declaring it does not recognize a legal right to reparations. Eight days later, on April 2, 2026, we filed our response to the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, the UN Human Rights Committee, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Our submission makes clear that DUSCSTM are not addressed by international diaspora frameworks or African Union reparations initiatives. We are a legally distinct group requiring specific accountability from the United States government.