Ирвин Котлер: Канадалық саяхатшының өмірбаяны мен қызметі

Canadian politician

Irwin Cotler (born 8 May 1940) is a retired Canadian politician who was Member of Parliament for Mount Royal from 1999 to 2015. He served as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada from 2003 until the Liberal government of Paul Martin lost power following the 2006 federal election. He was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada in a by election in November 1999, winning 92% of votes cast.

The son of a lawyer, Cotler was born in Montreal, Quebec to a Jewish family. As a child, Cotler's father brought him to Delorimier Stadium in 1946 where the two saw Jackie Robinson on the field, with Cotler saying this moment inspired his interest in civil liberties as he and his father discussed anti racism. Cotler received his B. A. (1961) and BCL (1964) degree from McGill University and was an editor of the McGill Law Journal. He then graduated from Yale Law School with an LL. M.

For a short period, he worked as a speechwriter for federal Minister of Justice John Turner in 1968 until 1972.

On 12 December 2003, Prime Minister Paul Martin appointed him to Cabinet as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. He recommended the appointment of two women to the Supreme Court of Canada: Louise Charron and Rosalie Abella, Canada's first Jewish woman Supreme Court justice. As Minister of Justice, Cotler tabled Canada's first ever National Justice Initiative Against Racism, in parallel with the government's National Action Plan Against Racism. He was tasked with improving relations with the indigenous peoples in Canada and implemented a policy "known as the seven R’s: recognition, respect, redress, representation, responsiveness, reconciliation and relationships." In early 2005, Cotler intervened in the senate review of Canada's 2001 Anti Terrorism Act, as mandated by section 145 of the bill. This law, adopted in the wake of the September 11 attacks, had been criticized by some human rights groups and defense lawyers, as an unreasonable trade off between security and freedom. In his speech to the senate committee on the matter, Cotler rejected these concerns, arguing that "there is no contradiction in the protection of security and the protection of human rights".

On 22 February 2006, the Liberal Party appointed Cotler Critic for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in the opposition shadow cabinet for the 39th Canadian Parliament. On 18 January 2007, Cotler was appointed Critic for Human Rights by newly elected leader Stéphane Dion. Cotler was re elected to Parliament in the 2008 election to represent the Mount Royal riding in Quebec with 55% of the vote, In January 2009, Cotler was named Special Counsel on Human Rights and International Justice for the Liberal Party, under Michael Ignatieff, and subsequently Critic for Human Rights. He was re elected again in the 2011 election, fending off a serious challenge from former city councillor Saulie Zajdel, a longtime Liberal supporter running as a Conservative who lost by only 2,500 votes. It was only the third time that the Liberals had been seriously threatened in Mount Royal since 1940, and the closest that a centre right party has come to winning anywhere in Montreal since 1993. In May 2011, Cotler was named Justice and Human Rights Critic by interim Liberal leader Bob Rae. Cotler also chaired the Inter Parliamentary Group for Human Rights in Iran, the Inter Parliamentary Group of Justice for Sergei Magnitsky, and the All Party Save Darfur Coalition. In 2013, Cotler was chosen to represent the Liberal Party of Canada at the funeral of Nelson Mandela in deference to the work he allegedly did for and with Mandela in fighting Apartheid. Party Leader Justin Trudeau gave up his seat for him. On 5 February 2014, Cotler announced he was not running in the 42nd Canadian federal election. He said he would remain "active in public life, lecturing and writing on the issues of the day, advancing the causes of human rights and international justice, and advocating on behalf of political prisoners." Cotler was one of thirteen Canadians banned from traveling to Russia under retaliatory sanctions imposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2014. He replied through his official Twitter feed, "I see my travel ban from Russia as a badge of honour, not a mark of exclusion." Cotler Cotler spoke at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy on several occasions.

Cotler is a past president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, a member of MEMRI's Board of Advisors, an Honorary Member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the Genesis Prize Foundation and is a board member of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations. Studying antisemitism, Cotler separated it into six categories and found thirteen indices of discrimination against Jews that characterizes the "new anti Jewishness". In 1986 he was named chief counsel to the Canadian Jewish Congress at the Deschênes Commission of Inquiry on Nazi war criminals. Cotler worked with a group of international jurists to indict Iranian President Ahmadinejad for incitement to genocide under the UN Charter and the Genocide Convention, saying that the Iranian government used anti Jewish rhetoric similar to the Nazi Party. Cotler chaired a commission called the "Responsibility to Prevent Coalition", which released a petition in 2009 entitled "The Danger of a Genocidal and Nuclear Iran: A Responsibility to Prevent Petition". The petition was signed by Elie Wiesel, Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, and the former Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Per Ahlmark, and historian Yehuda Bauer. Cotler is an advisory board member of United Against Nuclear Iran and the Counter Extremism Project. In 2012, Cotler advised Canadian foreign minister John Baird on rejecting the recognition of the State of Palestine during a United Nations meeting. the two met at Yale University in the 1960s. In 2016, Irwin Cotler drafted the "'Never Again' Declaration", which has been signed by justice ministers, parliamentarians, jurists, and Luis Moreno Ocampo, former International Criminal Court prosecutor. Cotler has been criticized as being anti Palestinian, though he denied the description, saying he supports a two state solution and criticized the Palestinian National Authority, saying "unfortunately, the Palestinian leadership has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity." saying that "Israel consistently seeks to minimize harm to civilians [in Gaza] using measures including leaflets, messages and phone calls to urge civilians to evacuate targeted areas, creating humanitarian zones and corridors, and facilitating humanitarian aid."

Cotler began representing notable prisoners with the Natan Sharansky case, who was imprisoned in the Soviet gulag for Jewish activism. In 1977, Sharansky's wife asked Cotler to represent Natan when the two met in Israel. According to Cotler, the case taught him that "[i]t was very important for mobilizing public opinion" and that "[t]he tipping point for the release of political prisoners is not necessarily the injustice of the case, It’s when you can make the case that it’s in their self interest to release the prisoner because it’s costing them." The claim that Cotler was arrested or ever represented Mandela in any capacity has been disputed by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and two prominent South African lawyers, including the last surviving member of Mandela's legal team. Cotler went on to represent other imprisoned individuals, including Jacobo Timmerman in Latin America, Muchtar Pakpahan in Asia. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian democracy activist imprisoned by the Egyptian government, was represented by Cotler and acquitted in 2003. He acted as counsel to Maher Arar during part of Arar's imprisonment and supported demands for a public inquiry. He has also defended both Palestinians and Israelis against their own governments, and participated in a minor role in the Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. Imprisoned Venezuelan opposition politician Leopoldo López chose Cotler to serve as an attorney on his defense team in 2015. In 2017, Cotler was then asked to join a panel of independent international experts designated by Luis Almagro, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, to determine whether there was reasonable ground to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed in Venezuela.

Cotler's wife, Ariela (née Ze'evi), is a native of Jerusalem and worked as a legislative assistant to Likud members of the Israeli Knesset from 1967 79. The two met at a lunch with members of the Knesset in 1977; Cotler was asked to deliver a letter from Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to the Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, a letter that included peace negotiation proposals. and gave the commencement address during the Faculty of Law's convocation ceremony. In 2022, he was profiled in the documentary film First to Stand: The Cases and Causes of Irwin Cotler. In 2023, he was awarded Israel's Presidential Medal of Honour by Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Also in 2023, he was awarded the Lantos Human Rights Prize.