Freed hostage Michael Kovrig kisses the ground at Calgary airport on landing in Canada from China in September, 2021/Adam Scotti photo

By Irwin Cotler and Brandon Silver

October 22, 2024

The commodification of innocent human beings as leverage in bilateral conflict has become both more frequent in recent years and more prominent in recent headlines. With the ongoing crisis of un-returned Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023, the return in August of hostages detained by Russia to the United States and the case of the “two Michaels” having drawn global attention to the contradictory notion of “hostage diplomacy”, the problem has become a major human-rights preoccupation.

At the 2024 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Hostage Aid Worldwide and our Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights concluded High-Level Week by convening a groundbreaking global forum on countering hostage-taking.

World leaders joined with hostage families and international human rights organizations at this official UN side event to help put an end to the rising global hostage-taking crisis.

The gathering was opened by Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Honourable Mélanie Joly and hosted by Canada’s Ambassador to the UN and newly elected President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Bob Rae. This landmark forum built on Canada’s international leadership in combatting hostage-taking, and its initiative against arbitrary detention in state-to-state relations and associated declaration, endorsed by nearly 80 states.

Importantly, the UN side event formally filled a gap in this initiative, in that hostage-taking by non-state actors was previously left unaddressed, and which facilitated a loophole whereby states could use proxies to take captives and advance their interests through arbitrary detention.

World leaders reaffirmed the international norms prohibiting hostage-taking, whether perpetrated by a state or non-state actor, and that human beings can never be used as pawns in geopolitical strategies or as leverage in negotiations. As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres put it in his keynote remarks to the side event, “[w]e must be very clear, to take hostages is absolutely intolerant. It is a violation of international humanitarian law. But more than that, it is something absolutely unacceptable, from any point of view. And in all situations, hostages must be released immediately and unconditionally.”

Dozens of diplomats, legal and policy experts from around the world joined this major gathering, including the missions of Argentina, Albania, Canada, Czech Republic, DRC, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, United States, Zimbabwe, among others – and with civil society and victim groups from around the world including Lebanon, Syria, Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Indonesia, and Nigeria – representing every region internationally.

Canada was joined as host by co-sponsors the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Argentina, whose ambassadors to the UN also addressed the official side event on countering hostage-taking, calling for greater global coordination and action in combatting this crime.

Next steps for an action agenda were presented by participants, with a focus on collective and concrete action:

1. Establish an ad-hoc working group within the UN that engages member states to address current hostage cases and to work to free them immediately. This can form the basis of an action-oriented coalition, where states can more rapidly implement a range of measures including joint diplomatic, legal, and economic measures;
2. Champion the appointment by the UN secretary-seneral of a special UN envoy for hostage affairs. The full force of the UN as guarantor of the UN Charter and international law, and representative of all its member states, can be brought to bear to help secure the release of hostages and strengthen norms prohibiting the taking of captives;
3. Expand existing international tools, including the potential renewal of the 1979 International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages. This can include a monitoring and enforcement mechanism for the Convention, and an evaluation of its efficacy, which can be initiated via a UN General Assembly agenda item on the subject;
4. Facilitate an annual UN global hostage forum in partnership with stakeholders to continue to advance cooperation and implement sustainable strategies and frameworks to prevent and resolve hostage crises. An Arria-formula meeting of the UN Security Council on combatting hostage-taking can also be pursued;
5. Engage international bodies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to ensure hostages receive humanitarian support and visits as required under international law;

At the UN, many former hostages and the families of current hostages joined the gathering, reminding participants of the power and purpose of policymaking at its best: saving lives.

Debra Tice, mother of captive U.S. journalist Austin Tice, and Shaked Haran, an Israeli human rights lawyer who had seven members of her family taken hostage by Hamas from their homes in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7th, spoke movingly of the plight and pain of suffering families, and the urgency of collective action.

While the effectiveness of coordinated multilateral efforts was emphasized, the importance of national leadership was also especially resonant. Canada led the adoption and global endorsement of the Declaration on Arbitrary Detention in State-to-state Relations, in the same way Germany championed the successful adoption of the 1979 Hostage Convention, and the U.S. set an important global precedent in their Department of Justice issuance of arrest warrants for Hamas crimes against hostages. More such leadership is necessary from more states.

Canada can set an example for others to follow by similarly initiating criminal investigations for foreign hostage-taking of Canadians, and thereby strengthening global norms against this practice. Canada can also continue convening countries in implementing sanctions against hostage-takers, as it did with the U.S., UK, and EU in the case of Russian officials responsible for the arbitrary detention of Vladimir Kara-Murza, Iranian regime officials responsible for targeting dual nationals, and Palestinian terrorist leaders responsible for the hostage-taking of October 7th.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, an independent expert group and quasi-judicial mechanism responsible for reporting on and responding to cases of state hostage-taking, has described the practice and policy of hostage-taking as meeting the international legal threshold of a crime against humanity. In the case of a Canadian permanent resident taken hostage and tortured by Iran, the UN determined that Iran’s policies in particular may constitute a mass-atrocity crime, and which requires an international response.

The UN General Assembly official side event on countering hostage-taking provides a framework on how the world can best respond. Canada should take charge to ensure the five action items emerging from this gathering are implemented, working in collaboration with co-sponsoring countries and all those states and stakeholders who participated.

Nizar Zakka – the head of our convening partner organization Hostage Aid Worldwide and a Lebanese national who was held captive abroad for four years – put it most aptly: “Hostage-taking is not just a humanitarian issue. This heinous act is also being used as a weapon of war, which constitutes a direct threat to global security and stability. It destabilizes nations, undermines trust between governments, and fuels the machinery of terrorism and organized crime. Hostage-taking is a global challenge which is why the fight against hostage-taking demands the unified and coordinated efforts of all UN member states.”

The maintenance of international peace and security enshrined in the UN Charter demands no less.

Irwin Cotler is Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. He has been Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Group for Human Rights in Iran; Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Group of Justice for Sergei Magnitsky; Chair of the All-Party Save Darfur Parliamentary Coalition; Chair, Canadian section, of the Parliamentarians for Global Action and Member of its international council.

Brandon Silver is an international human rights lawyer, and Director of Policy and Projects at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. In this capacity, Brandon serves on the legal teams of prisoners of conscience, representing some of the world’s leading dissidents and statespeople. He has successfully contributed to the release and resettlement in Canada of a number of former political prisoners and hostages.