Captive – hostage taking as state policy

Baroness Kennedy is one of the country’s most distinguished lawyers. Born and brought up in Glasgow, she is a member of the Bar, a King’s Counsel, a Bencher of Gray’s Inn, an Honorary Writer to the Signet and the recipient of 42 Honorary Degrees from many universities including those of Glasgow and Edinburgh in recognition of work on women and the law and on widening participation in higher education. She has also been honoured by the Governments of France and Italy for her considerable work on women’s rights. She was created a life peer in 1997 and has been a strong advocate for social justice and the rule of law in the House of Lords. She has recently been awarded the Order of the Thistle, the highest honour in Scotland. Over the last thirty years she has been at different times Chancellor of Oxford Brooke’s University, Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, President of the School of Oriental and African Studies and Principal of Mansfield College Oxford. She was also Founder of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford in 2018. Helena Kennedy’s public service has covered many fields. She was a Commissioner on the Education Commission from 1992-4 and led a government inquiry in Further Education from 1994 – 1997, producing the seminal report, Learning Works.  She was Chair of the British Council from 1998 – 2004, Chair of the Human Genetics Commission from 1998- 2008. She has chaired many public inquiries including in 2004 the Inquiry into Sudden Infant Death for the Royal Colleges of Pathology and of Paediatrics and in 20012 an Equality and Human Rights Commission Inquiry in Scotland addressing Human Trafficking. She also led the recent Scottish Parliamentary Inquiry into Misogyny. She is President of Justice; the law reform think tank and currently is director of the International Bar Association’s Institute of Human Rights. Helena Kennedy has authored a number of groundbreaking books on women and the law. She is President of the Helena Kennedy Foundation which gives bursaries to disadvantaged students. In 2021, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, Baroness Kennedy evacuated 102 women judges and prosecutors who were on death lists (with their families so the total number was 508) by raising the funds, securing safe houses,  chartering planes, and resettling the women around the world. She is currently working for the President of Ukraine on war crimes and trying to recover the thousands of children who have been abducted from Ukraine by Russian forces. 

Mr. Carstens is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the U.S. Department of State, where he oversaw the Bureau’s work in Near Eastern Affairs, Western Hemisphere Affairs, and the Office of Security and Human Rights. Previously, he served in Amman, Jordan, as the Country Director for a U.S.-based INGO that provided humanitarian assistance and stability support to Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons. Prior positions include Senior Civilian Advisor on the Commander’s Advisory and Assistance Team (CAAT) in Afghanistan; Project Director for an INGO based in Somalia; Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security; and Special Assistant for Legislative Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Mr. Carstens is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel who served in Special Forces and the 1st Ranger Battalion. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and holds master’s degrees from the U.S. Naval War College and St. John’s College.

International Chair of the RWCHR

Irwin Cotler is the International Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, an Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and longtime Member of Parliament, and an international human rights lawyer.

A constitutional and comparative law scholar, Professor Cotler is the author of numerous publications and seminal legal articles and has written upon and intervened in landmark Charter of Rights cases in the areas of free speech, freedom of religion, minority rights, peace law and war crimes justice.

As Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Irwin Cotler initiated the first-ever comprehensive reform of the Supreme Court appointment process and helped make it the most gender-representative Supreme Court in the world; appointed the first-ever aboriginal and visible minority justices to the Ontario Court of Appeal; initiated the first-ever law on human trafficking; crafted the Civil Marriage Act, the first-ever legislation to grant marriage equality to gays and lesbians; issued Canada’s first National Justice Initiative Against Racism and Hate; quashed more wrongful convictions in a single year than any prior Minister, and made the pursuit of international justice a government priority.

A leading Parliamentarian on the global stage, he has been Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Group for Human Rights in Iran; Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Group of Justice for Sergei Magnitsky; Chair of the All-Party Save Darfur Parliamentary Coalition; Chair, Canadian section, of the Parliamentarians for Global Action and Member of its international council.