The United Nations, set up to guard against atrocities, is fraying. Here’s how Canada could help repair it

By Steve Paikin, Contributor, Host of 'The Paikin Podcast'*

Alex Neve is one of Canada’s most passionate and decorated human rights advocates. From 2000 to 2020, he was the head of Amnesty International Canada and is in the midst of crossing the country to deliver the 2025 Massey Lectures on renewing human rights in a fractured world.

Steve Paikin: This month is the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. Look around the world and I suspect most people feel the UN has never been less relevant. Are they wrong to feel that way? 

Alex Neve: I think in every corner of the world, people are asking, what’s the UN all about and why does it matter? And is it really delivering this 80-year-old promise of human rights and world peace that ambitiously was laid out in 1945? You look around and see the combination of a world full of crises and catastrophes, whether that’s genocide and crimes against humanity and war crimes playing out in so many countries, the rise of hate and polarization and division, and all of that against a backdrop in which it certainly is apparent that the multilateral norms and institutions that are supposed to guard against all of that are, to put it mildly, frayed and strained. So that’s a pretty grim backdrop. But I think we need to ask ourselves: is that how it inevitably needs to be?

Can we make any progress if the U.S. is being the way it is? I guess I put them forward because that Constitution, that Declaration of Independence, that Bill of Rights, I mean, the UN is on their soil. Don’t they need to lead this effort?

I think you’re right. I mean, the connection between the U.S.‘s own journey and the establishment of the United Nations is inextricably linked. The U.S. Constitution, of course, begins with the stirring words ‘We the People,’ and the UN charter begins with the stirring language of ‘We the Peoples.’ There’s also the very practical pragmatic side of this, which is the United States is also, by far, the most important financial supporter of virtually all aspects of the UN. So, when the U.S. slips as it currently is, are other countries able to pick up the slack? I think that is the urgent challenge of our time, and I think so far it is disappointing to see the degree to which other states haven’t filled this rapidly widening void.

Can Canada fill that void? 

Not even remotely. We don’t have either the financial, economic resources or anywhere near the diplomatic political heft and influence to do so. But we certainly could be part of a determined collective effort globally to do so. And I think many of us are disappointed that we seem largely in disarray, feeling off our game and just trying to barely cope with what is coming out of the White House.

What would a more robust Canadian response look like as part of a multinational effort?

We’re generally respected as a state that stands for the right things, doesn’t particularly offend many other states. We have a degree of respect and thus influence with that. For us to be capitalizing on leveraging those contacts, that history, right now would be amazing. Would we convene some sort of very significant gathering of like-minded states that are reeling from this disintegration of the international rules-based order to concoct a response? That seems a bit naive to imagine a world in which that is possible. But if we were able to marshal enough states coming together to say, we still believe in this, and we’re going to do something about that. To have Canada be at the heart of pulling that together would be tremendous right now. I don’t see any particular sign of that at this stage. But if Canada stepped up and wanted to be part of that, I think we would find allies everywhere.

I would like to think that a nation that was created as a result of its people being victimized by a genocide would not be capable of perpetuating that on another people. But I am hearing a lot of people, whose judgment I respect, saying that there’s a genocide happening right now in Gaza. When I think of genocide, I think of the Holocaust. I think, putting people in trains, taking them off to concentration camps, killing them, and burning them. What’s happening in Gaza is entirely different. So I need some understanding of why so many people I respect are saying what’s happening in Gaza is a genocide.

I think it’s really important to remind ourselves of what the title of the UN convention is: the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. And that word prevention gets lost in a lot of the debates. The notion that somehow we don’t really have a genocide until all the killing has happened, and the final body is thrown on the heap is not at all what the UN set out to accomplish in 1948. What we want to do is make sure that we’ve got everything in place to ensure that we don’t go down that road and we stop it when we see it. The convention talks about the infliction of physical pain and suffering, the infliction of conditions of life, which are meant to bring around the destruction of a group. It talks about many other aspects, in addition to killing. I think the evidence, in my view, is abundantly clear that we are absolutely on that road. As long as genocide is occurring, which is the grim reality on the ground in Gaza, all states party to the convention have obligations to stop it, to prevent it from being completed. Even though it’s not gas chambers, the massive numbers of people who are being killed, the incredibly harrowing impact of the conditions of life, the blocking of humanitarian aid, the absolute destruction of the health-care system, a human constructed famine on the ground in many parts of Gaza, it just inescapably leads to that conclusion. But there’s actually quite a long list of situations around the world which the human rights community is speaking out about. And we are not seeing traction.

But, yes, we should be drawing attention to the other corners of our world that are suffering and that need that kind of response as well.

You’ve done three of the five cities on your tour for the Massey Lectures so far. What’s the reaction been like?

I have come away from these first three talks unbelievably heartened. The theatres and halls have been packed. We sold out Koerner Hall in Toronto. People were on their feet with a thunderous ovation. You could see the degree to which people were looking to and holding on to each other. This illustrates the degree to which people want and need to be having these conversations right now, conversations about the state of human rights in our world.

People are hungry for that right now, and I’m taking a lot of strength myself coming out of these lectures, just feeling really lifted up by that.

I see the excitement on your face, and I hear it in your voice, but I also wonder whether you’re doing a lot of preaching to the converted. Wouldn’t you love to see a few tinpot dictators in the room who really need to hear this message?

Well, of the thousand plus people who were in Koerner Hall, there might have been a few dictators ! But I’ve had people tell me that it was really an eye-opening opportunity for them, and I am hearing people say, this is in our hands, right? It’s not about sitting back, waiting, and kind of pointing our fingers at Ottawa or Washington or Paris. It’s about seizing our power. Eleanor Roosevelt once had an amazing reminder about what universal human rights is all about. She said universal human rights begin in the small places close to home. So small that they can’t even be seen on a map. And that it is by making sure that human rights flourish in those small places, that they will then take hold on the larger world stage. And that is the moment we’re in.

Alex, I want to believe.

You can! I think it’s by telling each other right now that we can and should and must still believe, and that it is that sense of belief that gets the ball rolling. We need to give each other that pep talk and kind of remind ourselves that is what it’s all about, and that it is worth struggling for.

*Published in the Toronto Star, October 7, 2025.