Irwin Cotler Lecture

"Global Antisemitism, Demonization, and the Laundering of Delegitimization under Universal Public Values"

Human-rights advocate and former Canadian government official Irwin Cotler presents a lecture on “Global Antisemitism, Demonization and the Laundering of Delegitimization Under Universal Public Values” during an international conference of scholars convened to address the connections between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

Cotler is professor emeritus of law at McGill University in Montreal, where he is director of its Human Rights Program and chair of InterAmicus, an international human rights advocacy center. A longtime member of the Canadian Parliament, he was minister of justice and attorney general of Canada and headed the Canadian delegation to the Stockholm International Forum on the Prevention of Genocide.

Cotler was at the forefront of the international struggle against apartheid. He served as counsel to prisoners of conscience Andrei Sakharov and Natan Sharansky in the former Soviet Union, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Jacobo Timerman in Argentina and Saad Eddin Ibrahim in Egypt. He is founding director of the newly established Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights.