The Honourable Irwin Cotler

Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

Mount Royal (Quebec)

Irwin Cotler was first elected to the House of Commons in a by-election in November 1999 and was re-elected in the 2000 and 2004 general elections.  Most recently, he served as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.

Mr. Cotler has served on the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and its Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Development, as well as on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.  On June 27, 2000, Mr. Cotler was appointed Special Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the International Criminal Court.

Before his election to Parliament, Mr. Cotler was a professor of law at McGill University in Montreal and the director of its human rights program.  He has also been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Yale Law School and the recipient of five honorary doctorates.

An international human rights lawyer, Mr. Cotler served as counsel to former prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union (Andrei Sakharov), South Africa (Nelson Mandela), Latin America (Jacobo Timmerman) and Asia (Muchtar Pakpahan).

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