Joshua Cooper

Joshua Cooper has been serving as trainer at DTP for over a decade. Joshua teaches at the University of Hawai’i and is currently the Director of the Hawai’i Institute for Human Rights and CEO of the GOOD Group. He also served as the co-Chair for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Task Force at the US Human Rights Network and a steering committee member at the U.S. Human Rights Cities Alliance.

Joshua teaches for DTP on Indigenous peoples rights; UN Human Rights Mechanisms (including the UPR); the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and its Voluntary National Review process; climate change and the Nationally Determined Contribution process; and Business and Human Rights.

Joshua enjoys participating in multiple training programs for DTP.

“I love being part of DTP. I will never forget my first training sessions in Canberra and Chiang Mai. DTP brought tightly committed people together and the sense of solidarity in support of human rights was so powerful that I thought it couldn’t be better to share theories and see transformation in action.”

Joshua enjoys encouraging DTP trainees and alumni members to use their international advocacy programs aiming at relevant UN meetings, “it is always more important for human rights advocates to utilize the UN meetings to focus on people and sacred places and to get people to stand together and speak truth to power translating the law into improving lives”.

He remembers fondly in a meeting with Bangladesh DTP alumni this summer at the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) session. They wanted to know possible paths at the UN to bolster their international advocacy, “I did a little bit of research and found the UPR review was coming up and couple other opportunities to organize and mobilize their community”.

When asked why Joshua is so passionate about advocating human rights, which is palpable in his various professional engagements with human rights and justice focused organisations and networks, he referred to his experience growing up in Waianae, Hawai’i and his background of student activism at the University of Hawai’i.

“When one grows up in Hawai’i, it is part of Kanaka Maoli culture to embrace one’s kuleana (responsibility). We are encouraged to cooperate together and it is really an expression of effulgence. We cannot be who we can full evolve to be if any one else is denied their dignity.”

Hawai’i exudes a spirt of service and solidarity to strive together for a better island earth. We live Malama Honua (Take care of each other and our earth).