Alberta’s International Agreements Act requires parts of international agreements to be passed into provincial law. This raises questions about how key human rights agreements apply in Alberta.
In its first act of the 2025 fall legislative session, the Alberta government introduced Bill 1: The International Agreements Act. The Bill received Royal Assent on November 26, 2025 and is now in force in Alberta.
The Act creates a single way for Alberta to approve international agreements. The government calls the legislation a move to protect provincial jurisdiction in international pacts. However, early critics of the Bill questioned the need for a law like this, as Canada’s constitution already protects provincial jurisdiction.
Constitutional jurisdiction over international agreements
Canada’s Constitution splits law-making authority between the federal government and the provincial governments. The federal government has sole authority over international relations (among other things), while the provinces have the power to make laws about education and property rights (and other topics) within their borders. The federal and provincial governments have overlapping jurisdiction over some areas, like the environment and public health. Because of this division of powers, international agreements often involve areas of provincial jurisdiction.
Before signing an international treaty about an area of provincial jurisdiction, the federal government usually consults the provinces. This consultation is important because the provinces will have to make laws to bring the treaty into effect in Canada. Even when there is provincial cooperation, tensions can arise: Alberta has pushed back on federal initiatives stemming from the Paris Climate Agreement. But even with a signed international agreement in hand, and the force of national peer pressure, Parliament cannot force Alberta to pass provincial laws to give effect to the agreement in Alberta.
So, what does the International Agreements Act really do?
The International Agreements Act in short
The Act declares that any part of an international agreement that falls under provincial authority is not law in Alberta unless the legislature passes legislation making it law. Most significantly, this new standard applies to all past international agreements.
The effects of this are greater than they appear. Canada does not always formally adopt international agreements into domestic laws through legislation, especially in the case of international human rights treaties and foreign investment agreements. For Alberta to now require every part of international agreements touching on provincial jurisdiction to be passed as provincial laws to be valid, and for that requirement to be retroactive, creates major uncertainty for the status of longstanding agreements.
A practical example: The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted by nearly every country in the world and signed by Canada in 1991. The CRC says a child’s “best interests” must be seen from the perspective of the child’s unique human rights, highlighting the importance of including the voice of the child in decision-making. Alberta did not support the federal government ratifying this convention due to concerns that the agreement would hurt parental rights. Premier Ralph Klein eventually endorsed the convention in 1999. Parents’ rights are still a key political issue in Alberta today, especially given recent bills affecting transgender youth.
Alberta never passed legislation to implement the CRC, nor did Parliament make the CRC a law federally. Canada sometimes adopts international agreements with the position that the state of the law in Canada already meets international standards, so the process of drafting legislation is unnecessary. As a result, the courts have relied on a common law presumption that laws in Canada aim to align with international obligations.
In the 1999 case of Baker v Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that even though Canada had not formally adopted the CRC into domestic law, the Court could consider the principles of the convention when interpreting Canadian statutes. This decision means that the courts can presume ratified international human rights treaties are part of Canadian law.
The International Agreements Act makes it clear that obligations under international agreements should never be presumed to be part of Alberta’s laws. Applying the Act to all past agreements means that important human rights instruments like the CRC and the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) no longer apply in Alberta except where explicitly included in statutes. Existing Alberta laws include parts of these agreements, but the legislative gaps – many of which were never intended to be meaningful gaps – are now a serious vulnerability.
First Nations’ Treaties are key international agreements
During debate on the Bill, members of the opposition raised concerns that the law could be read as a tool to undermine UNDRIP and First Nations’ treaty rights. The UCP majority declined to amend the Bill to clarify that the legislation should not be read or used in this way. The Minister of Indigenous Relations insisted an amendment was not needed because the Constitution already protects First Nations’ Treaty rights. The Minister’s position is puzzling, since the Constitution also protects the bounds of provincial authority that the Act aims to protect.
Despite Constitutional protections, Treaty rights have been central to decades of court cases between the Government of Alberta and First Nations. The province’s duty to consult with Indigenous groups over resource use and infrastructure development is a regular battleground. Notably, neither the Premier nor her Indigenous Relations Minister spoke to upholding commitments under UNDRIP during legislative debates on the Bill.
Commentary: Legislative action shows rights trending downward
Opposition members’ concerns that the new legislation aims to roll back rights in the province unfortunately aligns with this government’s track record. After quietly adding a notwithstanding clause to its own provincial bill of rights in 2024, the province invoked the federal notwithstanding clause in an unprecedented override of Charter rights in its back-to-work order for teachers in October 2025. In November, the government again implemented notwithstanding legislation to shield laws facing Charter challenges in court. How the province plans to use the International Agreements Act remains to be seen. But the uncertainty it creates for the state of individual rights in the province is worth keeping an eye on.
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DISCLAIMER The information in this article was correct at time of publishing. The law may have changed since then. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of LawNow or the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta.
About Lindsey Zess
