Scholars, Advocates Call for “Truth, Solidarity and Repair” for Haiti at 2025 Samuel Dash Conference on Human Rights
April 23, 2025
L-R: Reparations Finance Lab Founder and Executive Director Enith Williams; human rights activist Nixon Boumba, a member of the Kolektif Jistis Min nan Ayiti (Haiti Mining Justice Collective); and U.S. House of Representatives Legislative Director Ivan Noisette, L’18, were among the speakers on the panel “Answering Haiti’s Call to Action.”
Leading academics, lawyers and international human rights advocates gathered on April 8 for “Truth, Solidarity, and Repair: Haiti and the Global Movement for Reparations,” the 2025 Samuel Dash Conference on Human Rights hosted by Georgetown Law’s Human Rights Institute (HRI).
Madame Mildred Trouillot-Aristide, former first lady of Haiti, delivered a virtual keynote address.
Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the multimillion-dollar “Independence Debt” imposed on Haiti by France at the nation’s founding, the day-long conference featured a series of panels on the history and present-day impact of the debt, the nation’s legal claim to restitution and its role in the global reparations movement. Featured speakers included former First Lady of Haiti and American lawyer Madame Mildred Trouillot-Aristide, who delivered a virtual keynote address, and remarks by Ambassador Myrtha Désulmé, Haiti’s permanent representative to the Organization of American States.
“Two centuries later, Haitians are still being punished for daring to shake off their chains,” said Désulmé in her remarks, underscoring the ongoing struggle for political and economic development in Haiti and the ongoing impact of the so-called “Independence Debt,” which totals hundreds of millions of dollars paid for by generations of Haitians to the descendants of its former enslavers.
Ambassador Myrtha Désulmé delivered featured remarks at the 2025 Samuel Dash Conference on Human Rights.
Co-sponsored this year by the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, the Samuel Dash Conference on Human Rights is convened annually by HRI in honor of former Law Center Professor Samuel Dash, a human rights champion who died in 2004. This year’s conference was also held in honor of Mario Joseph, Haiti’s most prominent human rights lawyer and managing attorney for the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux in Port-au-Prince, who died on March 31.
Désulmé concluded by addressing the law students and advocates in the audience. “Haiti needs allies,” she said. “It gives me hope that, even in an era which seeks to suppress history, you will become the legal luminaries who will finally help to give back to Haiti the price of her blood.”
L-R: HRI Deputy Director Michelle Liu, L’13, LL.M.’20; Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti Co-Founder Brian Concannon, L’89; Ambassador Myrtha Désulmé; HRI Executive Director Elisa Massimino; IJDH Staff Attorney Kristina Fried; IJDH Senior Staff Attorney Sasha Filippova, L’13; and scholar, storyteller and visual artist Charlot Lucien.
This year’s HRI Human Rights in Advocacy Practicum is focusing on Haiti’s case for restitution. In this video, practicum students share highlights from their winter break research trips to New York, Paris and the Bahamas.