Restitution frames enslavement as a crime against humanity requiring repair

Evidence

Azoulay’s argument works on both a personal level and a global one. Returning the daguerreotypes to the descendant of the person forcibly photographed is an act of restitution that begins the process of repair. It is also an example of how we can begin to respond to enslavement-in the United States and beyond-as a “crime against humanity.” I know, from my years as a probation officer, that the role of the court is to make crime victims whole. Restitution, the return of property that was plundered, is a way of repairing this harm. “Slavery in the United States was ended without any kind of proceeding akin to the Nuremberg trials, in which perpetrators of crimes against humanity were indicted and punished, while reparations and restitution followed,” Azoulay writes. Agassiz created the daguerreotypes to justify the enslavement of Black people-and as Azoulay summarizes, “As long as spectators possess the right to view the photographed persons in scenes of captivity-with the photographs handled as if they are the museum’s property-Black [people] will forever be presented as ‘slaves.’ ” She compared the return of Renty and Delia’s daguerreotypes to me and my family to the other infamous objects that have been restituted. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1221

Categorization

• DEFINE: Restitution is defined here in its legal sense — returning plundered property to make crime victims whole — as distinct from reparations more broadly.
• QUESTION: The Nuremberg analogy is central to the reparations debate — worth checking how scholars dispute whether Nuremberg-style proceedings were actually possible or appropriate for US slavery.
• XREF: Connects to Saidiya Hartman’s ‘lose your mother’ and discussions of the afterlife of slavery; also the ‘crime against humanity’ framing parallels the UN Durban Conference language.