Irwin Cotler is a renowned Canadian international legal scholar, parliamentarian, and former attorney general and minister of justice of Canada. On the Oslo Freedom Forum stage in 2012, he explained the art of freeing political prisoners, recounting some of the memorable moments from his decades-long career as a lawyer for historic figures such as Nelson Mandela, Natan Sharansky, Jacobo Timmerman, and Maikel Nabil.