Canada and the United Nations

, San Francisco, May 1945. Canada was an original member of the United Nations, having previously served in the League of Nations prior to its dissolution. John Peters Humphrey established the Division for Human Rights in the UN Secretariat. Humphrey was also on the Drafting Committee of the International Bill of Rights. The Committee gave the Division for Human Rights the task of creating the first draft of the Bill of Rights, with Humphrey being the preliminary drafter of the document. Humphrey remained a champion of the Bill of Rights until its adoption by approval of the UN General Assembly in 1948. In 1947, Canada played an important role in the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). Canada was one of the 33 countries that voted in favour of the 1947 UN partition resolution, which led to the establishment of the State of Israel despite heavy pressure from the United Kingdom on the Commonwealth of Nations. Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester B. Pearson, having served as UN General Assembly President in 1952/53, proposed the concept of UN peacekeeping forces as a means of dealing with the Suez Crisis. He was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts and the establishment of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF). Canada ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and seven principal UN human rights conventions and covenants since then: • International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (accession by Canada in 1970) • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (accession by Canada in 1976) • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ratified by Canada in 1976) • Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (ratified by Canada in 1981) • Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (ratified by Canada in 1987) • Convention on the Rights of the Child (ratified by Canada in 1991) • Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (ratified by Canada in 2010) ==Actions as a UN Member State==

Peacekeeping ==Canada and the Security Council==

Canada has served in the UNSC for 12 years, thus ranking in the top ten of non-permanent members. As of 2015, it shares the fourth place in the list of non-permanent members serving on the Council by length with Italy. This places Canada behind Brazil and Japan (first place), Argentina (second place), and Colombia, India, and Pakistan (third place). Canada was elected for the following six terms: 1948–49, 1958–59, 1967–68, 1977–78, 1989–90, and 1999–2000 - once every decade. It lost its bid for a seat in the 2010 Security Council elections, to Germany and Portugal, and in the 2020 Security Council elections, to Ireland and Norway. ==National Film Board of Canada==

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB), Canada's state film producer, has produced several works about or on behalf of the U.N. The first, the 1944 short film U.N.R.R.A. presents In the Wake of the Armies ... focused the work of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. The 1945 film Now — The Peace, on the formation of the U.N. at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, was produced by the NFB at the suggestion of Archibald MacLeish, then-Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs for the U.S. government. == Proposed headquarters site(s) ==

A site on Navy Island which straddles the U.S.-Canada border was considered as potential site for the UN Headquarters. As well as a subsequent proposals following the Iraq invasion to relocate to Montreal in the Canadian province of Quebec. ==See also==