Jamaica celebrates that its reparations case against Britain referred to final appeals court

KINGSTON, Jamaica -- Jamaica’s government announced Wednesday that its reparations case against Britain has been referred to the United Kingdom’s highest court of appeal for the Caribbean island.The unprecedented legal maneuver marks a watershed moment in the fraught historical relationship between Britain and its Caribbean realms, moving a centuries-old grievance from the realm of political rhetoric into one of the highest echelons of the British legal system: the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.“It is really a very big deal, and the world is watching us,” said Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s minister of culture, gender, entertainment and sport. “What we are doing is historic, unprecedented and a major development in the reparatory justice movement. Talk of reparations has for a very long time been just that: talk. But Jamaica is known for action. The tide is changing, we are getting things done.”The king’s decision to advance the petition rather than dismiss it is highly significant. While the British government has consistently rejected calls for financial reparations, the Crown’s referral effectively delegates the legal parsing of these historical grievances to the Privy Counc...