‘We must take sides’: Alex Neve delivered Lodhi lecture in human rights

Alex Neve with Shannonbrooke Murphy at the Kinsella Auditorium in St. Thomas University. (Credit: Peter Gross)

On Feb. 17, Alex Neve delivered the 2026 Lodhi Lecture in Human Rights on “Universal: Renewing Human Rights in a Fractured World," at St. Thomas University’s Kinsella Auditorium. 

Neve is an adjunct professor in international human rights law at the University of Ottawa and Dalhousie University, as well as an officer of the Order of Canada. 

The lecture was organized by Shannonbrooke Murphy, associate professor of the human rights department at STU and director of the Atlantic Human Rights Centre.

Murphy introduced three “Canadian human rights giants” who hail from New Brunswick, such as John Peters Humphrey, Noel Kinsella and Alex Neve.  

The Lodhi lecture is dedicated to the memory of Lodhi, the designer of St. Thomas University’s certificate program in Criminology and Social Justice and the first director of the Atlantic Human Rights Centre.  

Neve “played off the theme” in his Massey lectures, highlighting the power of storytelling to relay his message on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 and its relevance today. 

80 years since the UDHR, “legal and democratic norms and institutions are under attack,” despite this, “billions of people continue to hold the promise close.”

In 2019, Neve interviewed Mohammed Salim, a Rohingya refugee who had fled genocidal attacks in Myanmar to dangerous refugee camps in Bangladesh. 

“Mohammed's tiny, immaculate shelter in Jamtoli Refugee camp was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There it was, faded and curled at the edges, pinned up to the central post supporting the blue plastic sheeting that was home to his wife, their four young children and his wife's elderly parents.”

“When I learned about the Universal Declaration, I knew that it holds promise as a lifeboat,” he said. “The world has not ensured that the lifeboat will be seaworthy.”

In 2006, Neve spent several weeks with an Amnesty International Research Team, travelling along the Chadian border “documenting brutal attacks.”

In Gjorlo, they saw the “smouldering ruins of the village.”

“There was no one there … silence was eerie,” said Neve. “Two small shoes, I can still see them, seemingly a matching pair for a very young child, hundreds of metres apart at opposite ends of the village, twisted and blackened.” 

Two days later, Neve met with the people of Djorlo who had taken shelter, since 50 km away, 40 people had been killed. Neve gathered with the elders, who read the names and ages of adults and children out loud. 

“They did so reverentially … in that solemn moment,” said Neve.

Like all others, “Haroon Yacoub had lived a life that mattered and that he would always be cherished for that life.” 

His name is on a piece of paper that is placed yearly in Neve’s annual agenda, which he carries everywhere, to “serve his memory.”

 Neve urged the audience: “We must always take sides.”

“We are all born with [human rights]. We don't need to do a single thing to earn them and they can never be stripped away,” said Neve.

The lecture resonated with Celeste Horsman and Emily Storey, two human rights students at STU. 

 “I'm going to be really honest, I cried … it was the two little shoes far apart,” said Horsman. 

“I don't know how anybody could ever be so cruel and cold.”

Horsman highlighted that Murphy’s introduction to human rights course ignited her passion.

“I found somewhere to put that, that burning rage that I feel in my soul, I have somewhere to channel it now, instead of just simmering in it and getting more and more angry every day.” 

The two small shoes also resonated with Storey.

“Those shoes kind of planted the seed in the mind that we all matter, like every individual matters, every person matters.”

Murphy then added that every human rights student should get as much exposure to field practitioners as possible.

She said that Neve’s national and international experiences make him “an ideal guest for our students to meet … to stimulate their own ideas about what might be possible for them.”