Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, chair of the CARICOM Reparations Commission within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), urged King Charles III to support dialogue on reparatory justice ahead of the Commonwealth summit in Antigua and Barbuda, The Guardian reported.
The Commonwealth Secretariat lists the 28th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) for Nov. 1-4, 2026, in St John’s. The Royal Family announced Oct. 2 that Charles and Queen Camilla would attend. CARICOM’s Oct. 21 notice said a media briefing scheduled for Oct. 22 would cover the commission’s summit engagements and ways to advance its agenda through multilateral institutions, including the Commonwealth and the United Nations.
CARICOM says regional leaders established the commission in 2013. Its CARICOM Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice: A Manifesto for the Coming Enlightenment was adopted in 2014, updated in 2018 and recently revised. In February 2026, CARICOM said regional leaders assigned a prime ministerial subcommittee to review the revised plan and recommend priority actions for CHOGM and other international engagements. The bloc places the agenda in the context of more than 300 years of chattel enslavement and its lasting effects.
At the 2024 Commonwealth meeting in Samoa, leaders said a meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation on reparatory justice was needed as part of forging a common future based on equity, according to their statement. The Guardian reported that David Comissiong, deputy chair of Barbados’ National Task Force on Reparations, said a draft communiqué for this year’s summit retained that commitment.
Comissiong also told The Guardian that a separate proposal for Commonwealth foreign ministers to advance structured discussions on historical harms did not secure unanimous agreement. The summit is scheduled to begin Nov. 1 in St John’s.
