The Honourable Irwin Cotler is a former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of Canada, who made the pursuit of international justice a priority.

He is a noted expert on international and human rights law, having intervened in landmark Canadian Supreme Court cases on freedom of expression, and serving as counsel to a number of prisoners of conscience, including Nelson Mandela, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Liu Xiaobo, and Raif Badawi. He is the Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and an Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University. As a Member of Parliament, Mr. Cotler chaired the Inter-Parliamentary Groups for Human Rights in Iran and Justice for Sergei Magnitsky, and the Canadian section of the Parliamentarians for Global Action.

In 2020, Mr. Cotler was appointed Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism.