[POSTPONED] Understanding and responding to state hostage-taking: Harnessing civil society and NGO perspectives — An Online Panel Discussion

Name: [POSTPONED] Understanding and responding to state hostage-taking: Harnessing civil society and NGO perspectives — An Online Panel Discussion
Start: 2026-06-17T19:30:00-0400
End: 2026-06-17T20:30:00-0400

Wed, 17 Jun, 7:30pm - 8:30pm EDT

Online Event

Macquarie University & the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights

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Description

⚠️THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED. A NEW DATE WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON. ⚠️

This collaborative panel, co-hosted by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and Macquarie University, is designed to launch the special issue of the Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism titled 'Rethinking responses to hostage diplomacy: A collaborative approach to policy, strategy and practice.'

Guest edited by Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, this is a very special issue that brings together leading scholars and policy experts in hostage diplomacy and arbitrary detention from around the world. Authors include Dr Alice Jill Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, former China hostage Michael Kovrig, and former Canadian Justice Minister and Attorney General, Irwin Cotler.

This launch event features journal contributors Brandon Silver, Sophie Hunter, Dara Conduit and Kylie Moore-Gilbert. Each author will discuss the ideas presented in their paper as part of a broader conversation about how to understand and address the phenomenon of hostage diplomacy, to be followed by discussion and Q&A with the audience.

This event will take place on Thursday, 18 June from 9:30am - 10:30am AEST / Wednesday, 17 June from 7:30pm - 8:30pm EDT.

Registrations will close 15 June 2026, 5pm AEST.

Moderator

Kylie Moore-Gilbert

Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert is an Australian political scientist specialising in the Middle East. She is currently a research fellow in Macquarie's Department of International Studies, where she is researching hostage diplomacy and wrongful detention policy. Kylie is the author of the 2022 memoir The Uncaged Sky: My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison and the founding director of advocacy group The Australian Arbitrary and Wrongful Detention Alliance.

Panel members

Brandon Silver

Brandon Silver is an international human rights lawyer, and Director of Policy and Projects at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR). He also serves as Chief Advisor to former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Irwin Cotler, the Founder and Chair of the RWCHR. 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. He also acts on behalf of mass atrocity victims, and is a key figure in the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign and a recognized subject expert in targeted sanctions. Brandon is also sought after for his strategic counsel to democratic governments, parliaments, and major international organizations on rule of law and public policy reforms. Brandon’s work has been featured in major publications, including TIME magazine, Project Syndicate, the Globe and Mail, Foreign Policy, and the Washington Post, and is a past nominee of the Quebec Literary Awards and winner of the CBC Reader’s Choice Prize. In 2016, the World Economic Forum named him a “Global Shaper,” and in 2022 he was named one of Canada's "Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers" by Canadian Lawyer Magazine. He is trained in both major world juridical traditions of Common Law and Civil/Continental Law, holding law degrees from the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, the Université de Montréal Faculty of Law, and a Masters of Law from UC Berkeley on a scholarship for excellence in Public Law.
Sophie Hunter

Sophie Hunter is a policy professional with a legal and economic background, having studied at several universities across the UK. She spent several years working within the United Nations system on policy formulation and development issues across developing countries. Her previous research focused on competition law and policy and energy transition in developing economies, including issues related to the global energy transition. In 2025, she gained first-hand experience navigating an international hostage diplomacy case between the United States and Venezuela while serving as the chief advocate for the release of a detained family member. Her work and lived experience inform her interest in international law, diplomacy, and state responses to hostage-taking.
Dara Conduit

Dr Dara Conduit is a Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Melbourne. In addition to conducting research on authoritarianism, autocratic technology-use and hostage diplomacy in Iran and Syria, Dara has lived experience of hostage diplomacy as one of the leaders of the Australian campaign to bring Kylie Moore-Gilbert home from prison in Iran.