International Bar Association (IBA) President Jaime Carey was among the speakers welcoming more than 5,000 delegates at the IBA 2025 Annual Conference in Toronto yesterday evening.
Carey reflected on the close ties between his home country Chile and Canada, as well as themes around the rule of law, diversity and inclusion, and artificial intelligence. Carey’s speech was followed by the presentation of the Benjamin Berell Ferencz Rule of Law Lifetime Achievement Award to Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella, a former judge at the Supreme Court of Canada.
Abella then delivered the ceremony’s keynote address, in which she delivered a powerful and at times emotional speech that was part tribute to the rule of law and part call to action against the dangers the rule of law is facing today around the world.
In receiving her Rule of Law award, she paid tribute to Nuremberg prosecutor Ferencz and how Nuremberg was the legal engine to protect the world from inhumanity. Abella drew parallels between indifference to the rule of law today and how the world stood by and watched Hitler’s treatment of Jewish people in the run up to World War II with indifference.
She said: “At the moment, the gap between the values the international community articulates and the values it enforces is so wide that almost any country that wants to, can push its abuses through it… In too many
parts of the world, there are no regrets, no tolerance, no justice and no hope, and those parts of the world are putting the rest of the world in danger because intolerance, the world’s fastest growth industry, seeks, in its hegemonic insularity, to impose its intolerant truth on others.”
She said we need to replace “global hate with global hope, otherwise there is no hope”.
Other speakers included former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde, who was introduced by IBA Host Committee co-chairs Karen Sargeant and Shane Freitag. Bellegarde discussed the rights
of indigenous people and the challenges they face when it comes to the rule of law.
He acknowledged that Canada is now starting to recognise indigenous peoples’ rights and claims to justice, but he warned there was a danger that if those efforts were not sincere, then they would become hollow.
Bellegarde’s speech was followed by a ceremonial welcome from Elder Kevin Myran and The All Nations Juniors, who performed a traditional drum dance.
The Global Legal Post is a media partner of the IBA and is publishing the conference’s daily magazine, IBA Daily News, where this article first appeared. Click here for more details. For advertising enquiries, email [email protected]. A copy of today's edition of the IBA Daily News can be found here.
Email your news and story ideas to: [email protected]
