Colonialism as Structural Injustice: Historical Responsibility and Contemporary Redress*

Abstract

COLONIALISM was officially repudiated as an international practice at the 947th plenary meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in its 1960 “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.” The declaration equated the “subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation” to “a denial of fundamental human rights”; affirmed the principle of self-determination for all peoples in their political status and economic, social and cultural development; and condemned the ‘standard of civilization’ rationale for colonial rule by asserting that “inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.”2 This declaration constituted an official rejection by the society of states of the colonial history of international and transnational relations as it had been practiced for more than four hundred years.

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