The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, has said progress is being made in breaking political deadlocks that threaten to overshadow a world conference on racism in South Africa this year.
Preparations for the UN conference in Durban in early September have been bogged down on the issue of financial compensation for slavery and colonialism.
Some African nations have been pressing for countries that profited from slavery and colonialism to apologise and make reparations in the form of an international compensation fund taken from development aid money.
They say stolen labour and resources helped to develop rich nations and resulted in huge African debts which they want cancelled or substantially reduced. Some are calling for the return of art objects, historical goods and documents to the countries of origin.
The US and former European colonial powers have said they are not prepared to link a condemnation of slavery with specific reparations and have threatened to downgrade their delegations to Durban if the issue of compensation is allowed to dominate the agenda.
They fear an apology linked to a suggestion that governments today might be liable for slavery and colonialism of the past could open the floodgates for legal actions.
Mrs Robinson, who is stewarding the conference on racism and xenophobia, said she was "encouraged by developments just very recently because I was getting worried about whether in needing to address the past things were going to be skewed by the issues of slavery and compensation".
She met the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, in Washington recently and the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, in New York. She also met EU foreign ministers.
Mrs Robinson made her remarks in Dublin at the weekend before leaving for Zimbabwe for a summit of the Organisation of African Unity.
"I will be meeting African leaders to precisely make the point of the importance of this conference in Durban making a breakthrough on racism.
"It's not an easy conference, but I'm less concerned about the fact that we weren't making progress because I now see more of a political commitment, more of a realisation of how important it is."
She added: "We must honour the past, recognise the wrongs of the past, say that we have learned lessons and then have a forward-looking programme." The Durban conference is aimed at producing a joint declaration and a programme of action on the issues of slavery and resources. The wording of the declaration should be agreed before the summit, but as yet little common ground has been established between officials.
Mrs Robinson believes the row can be resolved only at a political level and not by officials working on the draft.
She said the UN women's conference in Beijing had made a breakthrough. "We can face the past as a global community. We can express regret. We can say terrible wrongs and exploitations occurred and we have learned lessons, and then we can have that practical forward looking programme . . . But let's keep the focus on what can really be achieved and what's important," she added.