"It Stays With You: Use of Force by UN Peacekeepers in Haiti" Film Screening and Discussion

The AHRC funded film It Stays With You: Use of Force by UN Peacekeepers in Haiti examines the impact of raids by UN peacekeeping troops in Cité Soleil, Haiti, in 2005 and 2006, in which scores of people were killed, including children, and many more injured. The film uses an innovative interdisciplinary lens, combining doctrinal legal analysis with documentary film studies. It was produced using participatory practices: those who gave testimonies were consulted closely throughout the research, production and post-production stages, including giving their assent to the film before it was screened publicly. The film also contains interviews with two former UN Special Rapporteurs on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, a former Organization of American States Ambassador to Haiti, a Staff Attorney at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, two professors at the State University of Haiti, and two international eyewitnesses. The participants in the film state that the UN is treating them ‘as though they are worthless’ since it has not conducted an investigation into what happened and no-one from the UN or any other official body has visited the neighbourhood to talk to them. Haitian novelist Edwidge Danticat referenced the film and our website in her article in The New Yorker and also sent us a message saying ‘When I saw the people say that no one had come to speak to them before, it reminded me so much of my own family members experiences in Bel Air. Thank you so much for helping these folks tell their stories.’

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with producer Siobhán Wills, Professor of Law at the University of Ulster's Transitional Justice Institute, and Richard Caplan, Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Linacre College. 

• Professor Siobhán Wills is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Authority; a member of the International Law Association Committee on the Use of Force; and of the Royal Irish Academy Social Sciences Committee. Her research interests are protection of civilians, peacekeeping, and use of force. Prior to her appointment at Ulster University Siobhán was a lecturer at University College Cork and Co-Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights.  In 2013 she was the Ariel Sallows Visiting Chair in Human Rights at the University of Saskatchewan. She has been a visiting fellow at Exeter College, University of Oxford; the Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, University of Oxford; Australia National University; the School of Advanced Studies, University of London; a Fulbright Fellow; a Hauser Global Fellow at the School of Law, New York University; a Fellow on the Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School.
• Professor Richard Caplan's principal research interests are concerned with international organisations and conflict management. His current research is focused on post-conflict peace- and state-building. He is currently engaged in research on how the principal peacebuilding actors within the United Nations system differ in their understandings of the characteristics of and requirements for a consolidated peace, and the implications that these differences have for the formulation and implementation of coherent peacebuilding strategies. The project will focus on the technical, organizational and political challenges of devising operational measures of effectiveness, in particular measures of progress towards the achievement of a consolidated peace.

Read more about the film Watch the film trailer 

Panellists at the Royal Irish Academy screening respond to the film

This is an event organised in collaboration with the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC).

The screening and discussion will be followed by a reception.