Introduction: The Symbolic Frontier

On December 24, 2025, the Algerian parliament unanimously passed a law declaring the 132-year-old French colonization (1830-1962) a “state crime” and demanding an official apology, reparations and restitution. The legislative initiative includes criminal liability — from five to ten years in prison and fines of up to one million dinars — for any public glorification or justification of colonialism. The text of the law lists specific crimes of the French regime: nuclear tests in the Sahara, extrajudicial executions, systematic torture, and large-scale looting of natural and cultural resources.

Paris called the act a “hostile initiative” and a “blow to dialogue.” However, the Algerian law is not an isolated episode of diplomatic confrontation, but a manifestation of a global phenomenon that can be described as a new parade of sovereignty in the postcolonial world.

Just as in 1988-1991, the republics of the former USSR consistently proclaimed sovereignty, asserting the priority of their own power over the union center, today the erstwhile colonies are building a new wave of sovereign declarations, however not about formal independence (which was achieved decades ago), but about substantive independence: the right to control their own historical narrative, to acknowledge committed crimes, receive material support as well as symbolic satisfaction from the former metropolises.

The Parade of Sovereignties: From the USSR to the Postcolonial World

The concept of the “parade of sovereignties” first described the process of the collapse of the Soviet Union, when from 1988 to 1991, the union republics and autonomous formations adopted declarations affirming the priority of republican legislation over the all-Union one. The Baltic republics were the first to declare sovereignty (Estonia – November 16, 1988), then the RSFSR – June 12, 1990), ahead of most other republics. The process ended with the complete collapse of the USSR and the emergence of 15 independent states.

However, the decolonization of the 1950s and 1960s was an African parade of sovereignties that followed a similar logic. In 1960 alone — the “year of Africa — 17 nations of the continent gained independence. UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 (1960), adopted on the initiative of postcolonial states, consolidated the right of peoples to self-determination and radically changed the normative consensus on the legitimacy of colonialism. The Soviet Union actively supported this process by initiating the United Nations Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.

But if the Soviet parade of sovereignty led to the legal and actual disintegration of the empire, the African and Asian parade gave rise to a paradox: formal independence while maintaining economic, cultural and institutional dependence.

Algeria gained independence on July 5, 1962, after an eight-year war that claimed the lives of about a million Algerians. The referendum showed almost unanimous support for independence — 99.72% of the votes. However, more than sixty years after the declaration of sovereignty, Algeria is forced to adopt a law criminalizing colonialism, because the first declaration of sovereignty proved insufficient.

Formal Sovereignty vs Substantive Sovereignty: Gap and Dependence

The classical theory of international law distinguishes between de jure sovereignty (legal law) and de facto sovereignty (the actual ability to exercise power). However, postcolonial criticism introduces an additional distinction between formal sovereignty (recognition of statehood) and substantive sovereignty (the real ability to control economic, political and cultural destiny).

The overwhelming majority of postcolonial States, despite their formal independence, were deprived of substantive sovereignty. Neocolonialism, a system of economic dominance, political influence, and cultural hegemony of former metropolises, preserved colonial structures of exploitation under the guise of “partnership” and “cooperation.” The most striking example is the CFA franc zone in West and Central Africa, where 14 former French colonies use a currency controlled by the French Treasury.

The CFA mechanism is based on four pillars: fixed parity with the euro; freedom of transfer of capital and income; guarantee of convertibility from France; depositing 50% of the foreign exchange reserves of African Central Banks in the French Treasury (until recently, up to 65%). This mechanism, created back in the colonial era to provide France with access to cheap raw materials, restricts the monetary sovereignty of French-speaking African countries, hinders economic diversification, promotes capital outflow and slows down development.

France retains control over monetary policy, financial regulation, banking and budgetary policies of these States. As the President of Gabon, Omar Bongo, noted: “France without Gabon is a car without gasoline; Gabon without France is a car without a driver.”

Similar patterns of neocolonial dependence are reproduced through debt relations, multilateral free trade agreements, the activities of multinational corporations, and the terms of international financial institutions.

Developing countries are forced to channel huge financial flows for debt servicing from the Global South to the Global North, while they themselves need investments in climate adaptation and sustainable infrastructure. The sovereignty of the Western superpowers is respected unconditionally; The sovereignty of developing countries is systematically violated under the pretext of humanitarian intervention, combating terrorism, promoting democracy, or economic imperatives.

The Second Parade of Sovereignties: From Legal Independence to Historical Justice

The Algerian law marks the transition to the second parade of sovereignties, a wave of legislative, political and symbolic acts in which postcolonial states assert their right:

1. To control national memory and historical narrative, freeing oneself from the interpretations of the past imposed by the metropolis;
2. Criminalize colonialism, classifying it as a crime against humanity and a form of genocide;
3. Demand official recognition, apologies, and reparations for systematic violence, plundering of resources, and cultural genocide;
4. To restore the looted: cultural artifacts, archives, human remains, natural resources;
5. To voice harsh language about colonialism as a system of exploitation, torture, and genocide, without diplomatic euphemisms and mitigation.

These requirements are no longer marginal. They are institutionalized at the continental level. In November 2025, the International Conference on the Crimes of Colonialism in Africa had been held in Algeria, where the Algerian Declaration was adopted. It is a continental reference document of paramount importance on the codification of colonial crimes, recognition of their consequences and the development of a strategy for reparative justice.

The Declaration calls on African, regional and international courts (including the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights) to undertake an in-depth legal analysis of systemic violence related to colonialism in order to establish its direct connection with recognized categories of crimes against humanity and elements of genocide.

The Declaration will be presented at the 39th ordinary session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union in February 2026 as “the first continental step toward the criminalization of colonialism in all its forms and the restoration of long-waited justice.” The African Union has chosen “Justice for Africans and people of African descent through reparations” as the theme for 2025, institutionalizing the demand for historical justice at the highest political level.

Coordination of Global Requirements: From the Caribbean to Latin America

The reparations movement is becoming transcontinental. In 2023, the African Union and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) created an alliance to jointly demand reparations from European states for slavery and colonialism. The Accra Proclamation was adopted at the Accra Conference on Reparations in Ghana, calling for the creation of a global reparations fund based in Africa, the establishment of an AU Special Envoy for Reparations, and the inclusion of the history of slavery and colonialism in educational programs all over the world.

CARICOM has developed a 10-point plan for reparative justice, which includes:

1. Full official apologies;
2. Indigenous peoples’ development programs;
3. Financing repatriation to Africa;
4. Establishment of cultural institutions and return of cultural heritage;
5. Assistance in addressing the public health crisis;
6. Educational programs;
7. Expansion of historical and cultural exchanges;
8. Psychological rehabilitation as a result of trauma transmission;
9. The right to development through the use of technology;
10. Debt cancellation and monetary compensation.

The Caribbean States put much stress on the fact that reparations are not a charity or a favor, but an “inalienable right” of peoples subjected to genocide, slavery and colonial exploitation. In February 2025, Dickan Mitchell, Prime Minister of Grenada, demanded “proper apologies and compensation.” Haiti, forced to pay “reparations” to former French slave owners after the revolution of 1804, paid this debt until the XXth century, a symbol of upside-down justice that urgently requires correction.

In Latin America, indigenous movements have been developing a powerful decolonization agenda since the 1990s, demanding recognition of the polynationality of States, self-determination of indigenous peoples, territorial rights and restitution. Movements in Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN), Colombia and Guatemala combine class and ethnic demands, oppose neoliberal extractivism and defend “right for your own,” namely, the restoration of indigenous identity, knowledge and governance. These movements do not just demand compensation, but claim epistemic sovereignty — right for your own knowledge systems opposed to the West-oriented epistemology.

Memory as a Battlefield for Sovereignty

Control over national memory is not an issue one can put on a back burner, but a central element of sovereignty. Memory constitutes identity, legitimizes political demands, and forms the boundaries of a national community. Colonialism sought not only physical and economic domination, but also the epistemic one: to impose upon the colonized peoples Western principles of knowledge, to jam indigenous knowledge systems, including legal traditions. Postcolonial states, gaining formal independence, often continued to use colonial legal systems, its educational programs and administrative institutions.

The politics of memory is becoming an arena of conflict between the state, civil society, and transnational actors. Official narratives of former metropolises often unabashedly silence the scale of colonial violence, avoid acknowledging responsibility offering sham “regrets” instead of full-fledged apologies.

The Algerian law directly opposes this trend by establishing France’s legal responsibility and imposing criminal sanctions for apologizing for colonialism. The law makes it clear: Its goal is not the French people, but the colonial state. It is embedded in global decolonization movements aiming to strengthen national unity over the struggle for independence.

France, in its turn, denies all the accusations. In 2017, President Macron called the colonization of Algeria a “crime against humanity,” but he never formally apologized. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the Algerian law as an obstacle to dialogue. However, refusing to apologize and acknowledge responsibility is not a neutral position. This is a continuation of colonial domination in the field of memory, an attempt to control the interpretation of the past, to impose its own narrative about a “civilizing mission” or “ambiguous heritage.”

Transit Justice and Decolonization: An Unfinished Project

Traditional transitional justice has developed as a set of mechanisms for societies that have experienced conflict or an authoritarian regime: prosecution of perpetrators, truth commissions, reparations to victims, institutional reforms, lustration. However, transit justice was rarely applied to colonial crimes.

Colonialism remained a peripheral issue within this paradigm. Postcolonial studies went on a rampage against the Eurocentricity of transit justice: its mechanism is based on Western legal models, liberal teleology (the supposed movement toward democracy and the market), and the separation of law and politics. Meanwhile, decolonization requires structural and transformational justice aimed at dismantling the colonial governance structures that continue to hold sway over indigenous peoples, people of African descent and former colonized peoples.

The Transit Justice Policy of the African Union (adopted in 2019) represents an attempt to ‘africanize’ this paradigm by incorporating the cultural, historical, and political realities of the continent. However, critics point out: how can decolonization, which historically involves a struggle against the structures of dominance created by Euro-American powers, be led by (neo)liberal institutions and norms promoted by these same powers?

The answer lies in the fact that genuine decolonization is not taking candy from a baby, it cannot happen within the framework of existing global institutions, but rather requires a radical transformation of these institutions.

Toward Structural Reparations: Rewriting the Rules of the Global Financial System

Contemporary demands for reparations go beyond just financial compensation, heading toward structural reparations: a change in the global financial architecture that continues to siphon wealth from the Global South to the Global North. The African continent loses tens of billions of dollars every year through illicit financial flows, unequal trade agreements and debt servicing. The Global South countries are forced to choose between investing in climate adaptation, social programs and paying off debts often inherited from the colonial past or foisted during economic crises.

The Bridgetown Initiative, launched in 2022 by Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, calls for reform of the global financial architecture in response to the climate crisis, debt burden and challenges of financing development. The initiative requires redirection of special drawing rights (SDR) The IMF’s transition from rich countries to vulnerable nations, the systematic inclusion of “catastrophic clauses” in sovereign debt contracts (suspending debt servicing after climate disasters), debt sustainability assessment reforms taking into account necessary climate investments and changes in debt restructuring mechanisms.

Although the Bridgetown Initiative does not use the language of reparations (one of its architects called this terminology “divisive over the top”), it is essentially a tool of systemic reparations: it is aimed not at redistributing funds within the existing system, but at rewriting the rules of the system itself.

This is an approach that should inspire the reparations movements: not to ask for crumbs from the colonial table, but to demand the restructuring of the global order.

Conclusion: From the Colonial Past to the Postcolonial Future

The Algerian law is not the end, but the beginning. It points out that postcolonial States no longer agree to limit sovereignty to formal independence and diplomatic protocols. The end of colonialism is not only a formal liberation, but also a declaration of full sovereignty: the right to control the economy, politics, culture, memory, and history. This is the voicing of harsh language about systematic looting, genocide and cultural destruction. This is a demand for recognition from the mother country and for material and moral satisfaction.

The Algerian phenomenon may become a paradigm for other postcolonial States. There is already coordination of demands: the African Union, CARICOM, and Latin American indigenous movements are building transcontinental alliances, exchanging strategies, and creating common institutions. Reparations have become the AU's theme for 2025; Algeria’s Declaration is being sent for approval by the continental summit; the 10-point CARICOM plan is rapidly gaining political weight.

The postcolonial world entered the second parade of sovereignties, it is not a struggle for legal independence (the latter has been achieved), but a struggle for substantive sovereignty, historical justice and the structural transformation of the global order. To be sure, this process is irreversible. The silence and oblivion that the former metropolises had hoped for is coming to an end. Postcolonial states are no longer asking, they are demanding. And this demand, like the Soviet parade of sovereignties, can radically change the world order.