In this lecture, Professor Gregoire Webber (Queen's Law) presents an argument for rethinking how we approach section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In the case of R v Oakes, section 1 was understood to authorize justified infringements of the very rights and freedoms that the Charter guarantees. Emerging from the case is a conception of the human person that is opposed to others in community. By exploring the relationship between rights, their limitations, and the human person’s relationship to others in community, Professor Webber will explore what the Supreme Court could have said in Oakes. In doing so, he will draw upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the idea that it is only in community that human persons may fully exercise their rights.