https://youtu.be/3xnVO8X3Mqc?si=PamegJWwL8Om3dIv
Haiti is filing for compensation from France - how might France defend itself in any court action?
These days, we recognise the dynamics of power and exploitation, esp. in colonial / post-colonial contexts. The threat of military action if the sum was not paid could be viewed today as gangsterism or maybe blackmail. It was blatant coercion or economic pressure, we are more sophisticated than this today.
Incidentally, I looked up the case - the 150m Francs was later reduced to 90.
Even by the ethics of France's contemporaries at the time, this must have seemed truly scandalous. France today would probably argue this was another era, a different France, like it has taken no responsibility for its Vichy regime.
It will say this was a sovereign agreement between two independent states, and was internationally recognised. Historical agreements are made in geopolitical and economic conditions particular to the time - altering them retrospectively could open up complex legal and moral challenges.
If Haiti's arguments are recognised, this would trigger numerous other demands for retribution...and that is the context today....imagine if...! International agreements are respected, they are "final", this is to maintain stability between nations, it is practical more than ethical. There's no precedent for revisiting an historic accord. Doing so could open up numerous cases globally where nations who feel they've been injured / suffered a wrong seek reparations for historic grievances, potentially destabilising international relations....bla bla blah...British gun boat diplomacy, China's century of humiliation. How could you possibly redress all that, and going back how far?
And what indeed about any statute of limitations? It's too late chum, more than a century has passed since the original agreement.
I'm sure France has been a good girl since then, providing aid, aid it could frame as in some way a certain compensation to mitigate any historic "wrong".
What a terrible time that must have been, shipping millions of people from the African jungle to the sugar cane plantations, taking away their freedom and giving them a life of hard labour. And then making them pay if they wanted to be left alone in their new country. We must learn from this and put it behind us.
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