UN General Assembly
1978

190. The issue of human rights will not go away. We have a clear choice. We can decide that the United Nations must face the issue squarely, or we will be forced to go elsewhere to seek a tolerable international consensus. In the view of the Canadian Government the choice is clear. We believe that the United Nations is ideally equipped to evaluate objectively, dispassionately and impartially allegations of human rights violations. The better it is seen to function the more confidence this Organization will command and the less individual Governments will feel bound to call for actions against others for gross and persistent violations of human rights. 191. We believe that the United Nations can improve its investigation of allegations of human rights violations. We welcome, therefore, as a significant precedent the decision of the Government of Chile to receive an investigative group. My Government also considers that the capacity of the Office of the Secretary-General to investigate and to intercede when necessary, as well as its authority to do so,