Irwin Cotler

Negotiations over Iran's nuclear program between Iran and six major powers -- the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany (the P5+1) -- began Wednesday in Baghdad against a backdrop of converging and intersecting factors.

First, there is the standing violation by Iran of international legal prohibitions...

Alberta-born Ronald Allan Smith is the only Canadian on death row in the United States. With his death sentence under review, I recently sent letters to Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer and the parole board -- requesting that clemency be granted in the case, having regard not only to...

As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Harper government insists on drawing reference to the Canadian Bill of Rights, casting it as not only the catalyst for the Charter, but indeed itself as a great instrument of rights protection. However, this is...

Thirty years ago today, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into being ushering in what former Supreme Court Chief Justice Antonio Lamer called ''a revolution in law comparable to the discovery of Pasteur in science.'' Indeed, the Charter has since had a transformative impact not only...

On April 17th, Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms will celebrate its 30th birthday. This momentous occasion deserves commemoration and observance, as we mark one of the most important advances in the promotion and protection of human rights both domestically and abroad. Indeed, Canadians now enjoy a panoply of rights...

A budget is not only a financial statement -- it is a statement of values. It is not only a balance sheet -- it is a set of priorities. Regrettably, as Parliament's debate on the budget comes to a close, it is increasingly clear that the Conservative budget fails to...

Syria's acceptance of UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan -- while welcome on its face -- will be tested by its implementation. In this regard, this seemingly dramatic announcement invites serious skepticism, borne of experience and the lessons of recent history.

Indeed, each...

On Tuesday, Royal Assent was granted to the Conservative omnibus crime bill, C-10, making it law. While I've written elsewhere that this marks a sad day for Canadian criminal justice given, inter alia, the bill's reliance on constitutionally suspect and failed policies in the matter of mandatory minimum penalties, and...

Today, the House had its final opportunity to debate Bill C-10, the Conservative omnibus crime bill. I rose to participate in the debate and began with my prospective conclusion -- that, if at the conclusion of this debate we adopt Bill C-10, we will adopt legislation that lacks...

International Women's Day 2012 fell at a particularly poignant moment as we also celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada's roadmap for the building of a just and egalitarian society. As we celebrate the Charter -- and its transformative effect on the protection of...

The Syrian government's slaughter of innocents has already claimed more than 8,000 lives with "merciless disregard" for their humanity, as UK foreign correspondent Marie Colvin put it the day before she was murdered as well -- and at the same time 150 more were murdered in the aftermath of the...

One year ago this week, the world mourned the loss of Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minority affairs minister who was tragically assassinated. Minister Bhatti was a courageous and heroic figure who literally put his life on the line in defence of religious freedom, equality and minority rights in Pakistan...

While the world is understandably preoccupied with the slaughter of innocents in Syria -- and when addressing Iran is concerned primarily with its nuclear threat -- a massive domestic repression has been passing quietly under the international radar screen, and will have a prejudicial impact upon the Iranian parliamentary elections...

While former Speaker of the House Peter Milliken was fond of musing, "It's Question Period, not Answer Period," the non-answer I received from the government yesterday in Question Period regarding its pattern of "reprehensible" (the Speaker's characterization) electoral behaviour -- and failure to take responsibility for it --...

The federal government last week introduced C-32, the Civil Marriage of Non-Residents Act, legislation prompted by the same-sex divorce case of a lesbian couple in which it was contended -- by the government -- that the marriage was never valid because the union was not recognized...

Last week, the Ontario Superior Court ruled that a mandatory minimum sentence imposed against a first time offender violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms' prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In a strongly-worded judgment, Justice Malloy described the punishment as, "fundamentally unfair, outrageous, abhorrent, and intolerable."

An Ontario Superior Court judge ruled Monday that imposing a mandatory minimum penalty in the case of Leroy Smickle, a man who was caught by police photographing himself on his computer while holding a pistol, is "cruel and unusual punishment."

Circumstances of the case before her would be...

The gun registry debate has been one of the more disappointing spectacles in the current Parliament, highlighted by MP Larry Miller's woefully inappropriate references to Hitler in House debate Tuesday.

Throughout the debate -- unduly abbreviated by Conservatives invoking "time allocation" yet again -- the government has boasted...

Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu sparked a firestorm last week with his incendiary comments on the death penalty, in which he stated murderers in jail should be given suicide tools. While he may have been speaking against the backdrop of his own personal tragic experience -- and he...

While the United Nations held a series of commemorative events in the past week marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day -- and marking also the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp -- the international community awoke today to yet another chilling and mocking reminder of the dangers of state-sanctioned...