Irwin Cotler is a Law Professor, Constitutional and Comparative Law Scholar, International Human Rights Lawyer, Counsel to prisoners of conscience, NGO Head, Public Intellectual, Peace Activist, Member of Parliament, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and the Government of Canada’s first Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism. Irwin Cotler’s work has been characterized as being “at the forefront of the struggle for justice, peace and human rights.” Professor Cotler is presently a Canadian Member of Parliament and currently serves as a Liberal Critic for Rights and Freedoms. He is the Vice-Chair of the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Human Rights, Co-Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Group for Human Rights in Iran, International Chair of the Responsibility to Prevent Coalition, and Chair of the All-Party Save Darfur Coalition. A leading public advocate in and out of Parliament for the Human Rights Agenda, he headed the Canadian Delegation to the Stockholm International Forum on the Prevention of Genocide.

An international human rights lawyer, Professor Cotler served as a Counsel to former prisoners of conscience in the former Soviet Union, South Africa, Latin America, and Asia. More recently, he represented imprisoned Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil, and is also a member of the international legal team of two Chinese political prisoners – 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo, and Gao Zhisheng. Professor Cotler also served as a Counsel to the Deschênes Commission of Inquiry in the matter of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice; filed amicus briefs before the International Criminal Tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda; and was leading advocate for the establishment of an International Criminal Court.

Professor Cotler’s efforts have resulted in his chairing, or being a member of, a number of governmental and citizens’ Commissions of Inquiry, including being Chair of the International Commission of Inquiry into the Fate and Whereabouts of Raoul Wallenberg; Chair of the Commission on Economic Coercion and Discrimination; and member of the Commission of Inquiry on the Crime of Apartheid.