Leaders from 56 countries are attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting taking place in Samoa on Friday and Saturday.
Commonwealth leaders are expected to defy the UK and debate ways of securing reparations for historical slavery. At its height, Britain was the world’s biggest slave-trading nation. Downing Street has said the issue is not on the agenda for the summit.
Reparatory justice for slavery can come in many forms, including financial reparations, debt relief, an official apology, educational programmes, building museums, economic support, and public health assistance.
In the run-up to the summit, there have been growing calls from Commonwealth leaders for the UK to apologise and make reparations.
Formally opening the summit on Friday, King Charles said that members of the Commonwealth “know and understand each other such that we can discuss the most challenging issues with openness and respect”.
“Our cohesion requires that we acknowledge where we have come from,” he said.
“I understand from listening to people across the Commonwealth how the most painful aspects of our past continue to resonate.
“It is vital therefore that we understand our history to guide us to make the right choices in the future.
“None of us can change the past, but we can commit with all our hearts to learning its lessons, and to finding creative ways to right inequalities that endure.”
He also spoke of the need to tackle climate change, saying Commonwealth nations should seek to be an “example to the rest of the world”, and paid tribute to his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, saying the group “mattered a great deal” to her.
During the gathering, a new Commonwealth secretary general will be elected. All three of the candidates – Shirley Botchwey of Ghana, Joshua Setipa of Lesotho and Mamadou Tangara of Gambia – back reparatory justice.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday, Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas, said he believed the UK would change its stance, saying: “It may take a while for people to come around but come around they will.”
Mitchell has also urged the UK government to offer an apology, telling the Commonwealth gathering: “It’s a simple matter – it can be done, one sentence, one line.”
Asked if an apology would be offered, Sir Keir said: “Of course, an apology has already been made in relation to the slave trade, and that’s not surprising, it’s what we would expect.”
In 2007, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair apologised for the slave trade. Following talks with the Ghanaian president, he said: “I have said we are sorry and I say it again.”