Just as we began planning this film, the name Darfur first appeared in news dispatches from Africa. The first stories warned of the horrors that were soon to follow but what we didn’t know was the extent to which Darfur would become a test of the UN’s capacity to live up to its charter, and of the heartbreak, anger and outright cynicism that have washed over the public as compassion was defeated by raw power politics.

Louise Arbour began her job as the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights just as Darfur seized the headlines. She has not escaped the angry denunciations of the UN’s impotence in the face of killers hiding behind the principle of national sovereignty. And her battles weren’t limited to Africa. Other names that hit the headlines during her first few months in office include Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Beslan – cases where the human rights violators were the most powerful governments in the world.

It’s ironic that this explosion of violence and abuse should coincide with Arbour”s arrival in her new job. She invokes The Law: human rights law, war crimes laws, international criminal law. She’s also a dogged activist and reformer of the UN’s ossified bureaucracy. She came to her job determined to focus on the unspectacular task of expanding social and economic rights to the poorest of the world’s poor, far away from the media’s spotlight. And even as we filmed her under fire in Sudan, Uganda, Chechnya, the United States and Lebanon, Arbour’s never forgot her grassroots priorities. She seeks out refugee camps, prisons, and festering slums as places to witness the most insidious, and common, human rights violations in the world today.

Perhaps that’s why we in the film crew, at a time when it’s easy to dump on the UN, came away from this assignment with a feeling of deep respect for the people in front of our camera. Arbour and her team don’t take their eyes off the job, even as they’re constantly caught in the crossfire.

Ole Gjerstad
December, 2006