Imagine, If You Will: At UNGA 80, Canada Re-Commits to Universal Human Rights*

Let’s begin with a thought experiment. What if Prime Minister Mark Carney had asked me to write his address to this year’s United Nations General Assembly?

This is a consequential year. The 80th anniversary of the United Nations comes at an auspicious and difficult time. On so many fronts, what is generally described as the rules-based international order is not only under pressure, but collapsing; both its norms and its institutions. The UN is the edifice on which that order was constructed and through which it has functioned over the past eight decades.

Yet, here we are. Against a backdrop of geopolitical rivalry and institutional stasis, we watch Israel’s genocide grind on in Gaza, Russia’s waves of deadly drones and rockets intensify in Ukraine, the Rohingya refugee crisis worsen in Southeast Asia, and Sudan’s catastrophic civil war exact a deepening toll. The Security Council fails to act, blocked by vetoes or anticipated vetoes; and the General Assembly’s protestations go unheeded.

Meanwhile, urgent exhortations from the UN’s Secretary General and expert Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urging states to avert the relentless advance of the climate crisis seem futile. Indeed, Donald Trump and other leaders ignore the science and undo the slight progress we have made.

Around us, we witness the degradation of democracy and the rise of autocracy posing as populism to win elections, including in countries once seen as reliable bastions of democratic freedom. Three of the five permanent members of the Security Council — China, Russia and, particularly disturbing, the United States — treat international law with contempt, setting the stage for other states to follow. Dramatically ramped-up military spending takes precedence over urgent humanitarian needs. Understandably, around the world people ask: where are the rules and where is the UN?

It does in many ways feel as if we are at a consequential, even monumental, fork in the road. Do we walk away from what the UN aspired to be? Or do we find deeper resolve and new approaches to truly live up to the 80-year-old promise reflected in the UN Charter to “live together in peace with one another.”

And so, to my draft of Mark Carney’s speech:

“Madam President, fellow delegates, and friends. It is an honour to be with you at this time of immense challenge, weighty responsibility for global leaders, and grave consequence for our world.

I begin with the three words that I believe lay out the only path forward for us:

Universal human rights.

Eighty years ago, our predecessors were clear in establishing this august body. In the wake of the horrific assault on humanity that was the Holocaust, one of the primary purposes of the United Nations was “promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction.” Three years later, when they adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, spearheaded by Eleanor Roosevelt and counting Canadian legal scholar John Humphrey among its key authors, they declared it to be the “foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”

Eighty years on, we have failed, utterly, to deliver on that promise.

In particular, we have betrayed the notion that the promise is universal, meaning it extends to every person, regardless of who they are and where they live; and we have completely disregarded that it is foundational, meaning that it must come first and is the key to all else.

That is why I am here today to announce that the government of Canada is revamping the country’s approach to human rights, to recuperate the universality of the promise of the Declaration and to ensure that it is foundational both to how Canadians are governed and to the contributions and impact we make beyond our borders.

As a first step, we are putting in place the tools needed to ensure that human rights will indeed always come first. Globally, that will take the shape of an international human rights action plan, championed by Canada’s first Ambassador of Human Rights, which will bring expertise, focus, consistency, resources and diplomatic heft to our efforts to advance human rights around the world.

Domestically, I personally will be leading a process with provincial, territorial, municipal and Indigenous governments to develop a national framework for ensuring effective implementation of our international human rights obligations. That framework will be enshrined in law and overseen by our first federal Minister for Human Rights.

Both globally and domestically, central to Canada’s embrace of universal human rights will be a concerted effort to maximize the evident human rights benefits of digital technology, including artificial intelligence, while taking decisive steps to address the toxic harms, the collapse of privacy and the erosion of humanity that have become the ominous hallmarks of our virtual world.

To that end, I have created an expert “Tech and Human Rights” team in my office, which will have my full backing in the drive to ensure that at every turn technology advances — rather than imperils — human rights.  The opportunities and threats are both immense. Canada is resolute and ready to be a leader internationally as well, in putting technology at the service of universal human rights.

Over the coming weeks, here at the United Nations, in other multilateral settings and in our bilateral exchanges and dealings with other states, it will become apparent that we mean it when we say that human rights are universal and they are foundational.

Today, for instance, I am announcing that, effective immediately, Canada fully recognizes the State of Palestine and supports Palestine being granted full membership in the United Nations. We will be naming our first full Ambassador to Palestine tomorrow. That is a clear indication that the rights of Palestinians are indeed universal human rights, and that respect for the right of Palestinians to self-determination can no longer be endlessly consigned to some unspecified time in the future.

I am also announcing that Canada is taking immediate steps to repatriate the 16 Canadian citizens, seven of them children, who have remained unlawfully imprisoned in Northeast Syria for more than seven years. We will finally accord with UN human rights experts who have called repeatedly on foreign governments, including Canada, to repatriate their nationals from these exceptionally harsh and inhuman detention conditions. It is a clear indication that human rights can no longer be considered an obstacle to upholding security, but are essential to it.

We are also launching today an expert review of Canada’s climate strategy, to assess its compatibility with our international human rights obligations. The panel will publicly report the shortcomings they document within three months, with an assurance they will be immediately rectified. As a first step, my government is today ending all subsidies and other financial support provided to the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries.

Perhaps most significantly, Canada will be giving priority attention to the obligation that is most essential to the universal human rights promise; the right to equality. Every law adopted nationally, and every program launched globally, must comply with the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Canada’s own record has long fallen short of that core principle, particularly when it comes to the rights of Indigenous Peoples. We have failed to acknowledge the long history and meaningfully address the continuing impact of genocide against Indigenous Peoples in Canada. No longer.

We have also failed to genuinely recognize that refugees are fully included in the universal human rights promise, which is why Canada is, today, suspending our Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States. And globally, advancing the equality rights of women and girls will not only be a priority for Canada going forward; it will be an absolute requirement.

Let me end by encouraging other states to take similar steps. We truly have no other option. While there has of course been notable human rights progress around the world over the past 80 years, the chasm between the universal promise and lived reality remains a colossal one.

That is at the base of the strife and discord, the hardship and deprivation that is tearing at our bonds of common humanity and imperiling the very survival of the planet.  We cannot continue to pretend otherwise. Canada will not continue to pretend otherwise.”

Alex Neve, an international human rights lawyer and professor, is the former secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada. He is the 2025 CBC Massey Lecturer and author of the accompanying book, Universal: Renewing Human Rights in a Fractured World.

*Published in Policy Magazine, September 18, 2025