Speaker details

Biography

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, constitutional and international human rights lawyer and counsel to Prisoners of Conscience. As parliamentarian from 1999 to 2015, Professor Cotler was at the forefront of the struggle for justice and human rights, both domestically and internationally. He served as chair of the first-ever Parliamentary Assembly for the International Criminal Court; chair of the Parliamentarians for Global Action (Canada); 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; co-chair from Canada of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance for China; and co-chair of the International Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism. He was elected 2014 Canadian Parliamentarian of the Year by his colleagues. In 2022, Professor Cotler was honored by the Churchill Society for the Advancement of Parliamentary Democracy when they bestowed upon him their Award for Excellence. In the summer of 2023, The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice recognized him as one of the world’s foremost human rights lawyers, and will award him their highest honor, the Lantos Human Rights Prize in October in Washington DC. In September of 2023, Israeli President Isaac Herzog conferred upon Professor Cotler the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor in a ceremony in Jerusalem, characterizing him as “a world-renowned human rights advocate who has made a special contribution in the field of the struggle for human rights, and in the fight against antisemitism, hate crimes, and racism