now on bbc news, it's time for hardtalk with zeinab badawi.me to hardtalk with me, zeinab badawi, coming to you from barbados. i'm on an historic sugar plantation where enslaved africans toiled in backbreaking labour during three centuries of the transatlantic slave trade. barbados was one of the earliest and most profitable of the slave colonies in the caribbean. this is the house on the grounds of the plantation, built in the 16505, where the slave owners lived in great style. my guest is barbados—born eminent historian sir hilary beckles. he's vice chancellor of the university of the west indies and chair of a caribbean commission to gain reparations for the descendants of enslaved africans. what are his chances of success? professor sir hilary beckles, welcome to hardtalk. tremendous honour, pleasure to be here. right, so, we're here in the part of barbados that is your ancestral land, your great—great—great—grandpa rents worked on sugar plantations just nearby. what is the legacy of that history of slavery here in barbados? well, this is

did not act for him because i'd been in a bbc studio on the sunday night before — world service, zeinabi said, publicly on the radio, "no. "my own personal view is if you've committed a mass "crime — international crime, genocide, crime "against humanity, war crimes — no immunity for a former "head of state." serving head of state would be different. and i was able to, if you like, use that to avoid professional embarrassment. that got you out of one hole, but what you have done over many years as you've been an adviser, a consultant to many international tribunals and you've watched with great professional interest as the tribunal in the former — to consider the crimes in the former yugoslavia did its work, then there was the rwandan tribunal. we have, since 2002, an active international criminal court. but there are many people who look at this whole sort of mechanics of international justice today and they think that it is fundamentally failing, that it is failing to deliver proper true accountability and justice. it's failing to deliver the vision of 19115. you know, on the first da

welcome to hardtalk with me, zeinab badawi, coming