Nigeria, April 6 -- Last month, the United Nations General Assembly was unimpeachably correct in condemning the hideous practice of slavery in a resolution endorsed by 123 votes. Those voting either against the resolution (Argentina, Israel and the United States) or choosing to abstain (52 in all) did, nonetheless, demonstrate why grave breaches of human rights can never be extricated from the political and historical context of their perpetration. Importantly, such resolutions are always relevant for what they omit, susceptible to trends and pressures of the moment.

The resolution emphasised "the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity by reason of the defini...