16. 跨大西洋奴隶贸易被称为第一个全球化体制。21 跨大西洋奴隶制和奴隶贸易的核心是依据“种族”对人性的剥夺；一种迄今依然对享有基本人权的机会起着决定作用的社会构架。22 奴隶制和奴隶贸易体现并持久加深了极端形式的种族歧视，它依赖本国及国际法律框架在受到跨大西洋奴隶制影响的世界各地构筑和维护了种族等级制度。例如到 17 世纪中叶，在美洲各殖民地，黑人在法律上均被认定为动产奴隶，即视作财产而不是人。“‘黑人’的种族身份标明了谁是受奴役的人；‘白人’的种族身份标明谁是‘自由’的或者至少不是奴隶”。23 作为一种法律体制，奴隶制采用种族来决定哪些人将面临成为可以购买、出售、继承甚至用来抵押的财产这种待遇。24
16. The transatlantic slave trade has been described as the first system of globalization. 21 At the core of transatlantic slavery and the slave trade was the dehumanization of persons on the basis of “race”; a social construct that to this day shapes access to fundamental human rights. 22 Slavery and the slave trade embodied and entrenched extreme forms of racial discrimination, relying on domestic and international legal frameworks to institute and protect racial hierarchy in the various parts of the world affected by transatlantic slavery. For example, by the mid-seventeenth century, black people were recognized as chattel slaves in law – as property, rather as than humans – in the American colonies. “‘Black’ racial identity marked who was subject to enslavement; ‘white’ racial identity marked who was ‘free’ or, at minimum, not a slave.” 23 As a legal institution, slavery used race to determine which humans would face treatment as property to be bought, sold, inherited and even used as collateral. 24