 Hello, welcome to Global Connections on the ThinkTech Live Streaming Network series. I'm your host, Grace Chang, and today I have with us in the studio Joshua Cooper, the Executive Director of the Hawaii Institute for Human Rights, and we'll be talking about a human rights approach to global advocacy for peace, justice, and sustainable development. Welcome, Joshua. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here. Very nice to have you here. And this is your first time on the show. It is. It's really great to be home, and it's great to be able to share some of the experiences that we're able to have around the world for equality and equity. Great. Yeah, you travel such a great deal, so I'm really happy to pin you down, and I really would like to get right into what we're going to talk about, but please give us a little bit of background about yourself and your work. Yeah, I'm fortunate to be able to grow up here in Hawaii, grow up in Waianae, and then able to go to the University of Hawaii for undergraduate and graduate school, and really be able to combine sort of academia and activism, so able to be student and government vice president of undergraduate and graduate, chair of the human of the student council, and be able to be involved in the student caucus, and was even on the board of regents. And then really from like after college until now, it's been 20 years of amazing advocacy around the world helping indigenous peoples and also human rights movements in Hawaii, but all the way at the national level and the U.S. level, helping out the U.S. human rights network, and then at the global level, helping different people at the United Nations. Yeah, I mean, there's so many things you've been working on, many, many different issues at the U.N. and different forums. Tell us a little bit about some of the more recent issues you've been working on. It's been exciting. The most recent thing was we just celebrated the first anniversary of the U.N. sustainable development goals. So there are 17 goals that all the governments of the world agreed to, and they'll be from 2015 to 2030. So it really is a recipe for how we can increase the well-being of all people in the world, and it's comprehensive. It's looking at everything from ending poverty, making sure everyone has nutrition, also taking care of the environment, also ensuring gender equality for everyone, and also all the way up to having peace and justice and strong institutions to ensure a global order that is actually geared towards people's basic rights and dignity. So the sustainable development goals is one area I was working in, also still helping a lot of Indigenous peoples. So recently, a government asked me to be one of their senior advisors at the U.N. to help a group of Indigenous peoples seek self-determination at the U.N. So actually advising them at the U.N. General Assembly. We're doing that because the opening of the General Assembly just took place. September, New York is the month to be there because all the big foundations, Clinton Foundation, U.N. General Assembly, all the heads of states are there. So it's really a great time to meet everyone who's sort of movers and shakers that want to move the needles in the right direction for non-violence in a better world. How did you get into this type of advocacy work? I guess I got a little bit lucky. The academia and activism always blend, so I think it makes me a stronger academic because when students ask how I know things, it's because I actually did it. I wrote it. I organized it. And then on the activism side, I don't burn out because I'm always reading and reflecting, which we get to do as academics. So that's a fortunate thing. And then things just build on one another. So I'm at the point now where I can almost take on any new job, as long as it's involving teaching, training, or tactics and being able to help people organize and mobilize certain advocacy things in almost any structure because political power structures are almost all the same. You have to know who's the mover, who's the shaker, who you need to discuss, how you need to get things. So it's problem-solving on a planetary level, so it's kind of exciting. And I mean, this is great to be able to bridge what you learn, what we learn in universities, in academia. Sometimes we don't have a lot of exposure to the real life element. So it sounds like it's a great combination. It's actually perfect. And then I'm kind of seeing now that I've done it for two decades. Also, I know no one was there for me. Like, I had to almost invent everything and figure it out. So now, kind of moving into a mentoring role and being able to help young people who, you know, I get an email almost every week from someone in Hawaii who says they want to do global work and what should they do? And this is my resume. So it's kind of exciting to be like, OK, you really don't want to work at the UN, you know. Seeing what you want to do, you're really more of an NGO or you're actually really good at a UN specialized agency. You should work with High Commissioner for Refugees. But most people just see the UN as just this one big body. But there's so many different aspects of it. So the one thing that's fortunate is over two decades, I learned how all the pieces work. And then now I know how to use the levers to make sure they increase the love in the world. So I can just, if someone comes to me with a problem, then I look at it for as much time as they have and then figure out what's the next 10 steps and then try to change the conditions to improve people's daily living conditions on the ground. So it's kind of exciting. Yeah. And so like, as far as, you know, an example, like with a specific community you worked with to kind of help them to enhance their, the rights protection. Can you tell us a bit about a case that would be interesting? Sure. I could do one. I could do maybe the country of Tuvalu. Okay. When I first helped them, climate change was just coming up to the forefront. And people only cared about penguins and polar bears. And I try to tell me others, people are going to be impacted by climate change and it just didn't register. And we're talking about an existential threat of an entire indigenous people's like civilization being lost from the face of humanity. Who has unique perspectives on how the world is and how to live with one another. And so meeting with the ambassador the first time, he thought I was there to complain and criticize. And I'm like, I'm actually here to actually help you because I think your country could be doing a couple of things. And after our first meeting, he was like, this is great. So we kind of actually were the first ones to frame in the early 2000s climate change and human rights and to put a human face on climate change. And now with Paris Agreement actually just entering to force this week thanks to the record number of ratifications and more importantly, the percentage of emissions on the planet. Now, and it was spearhead about the Pacific Island nations, now we've reached the Paris Agreement actually a couple months ahead of schedule. But we maybe have hit a turning point but the world can also be at a tipping point. So we have to keep working. But the exciting thing was to value, we were able to really propel the issue to a higher level at the planet. And then also they're working on women's rights. So they're being reviewed by the committee on the elimination of discrimination against women known as CEDAW. And that was exciting because then I helped the attorney general, the home minister and we did role plays almost what I do as students but this is with the real decision makers and based on that one review at the UN they passed two new laws to help and enhance women's rights in Tuvalu. So the exciting thing is if a country is willing you can actually help facilitate some positive social change that improves the life of the people. So that's Tuvalu, help a lot of indigenous people. So the Khmer Khrom are the indigenous people in Vietnam and the Mekong Delta area and they're Buddhist monks. And that was probably one of the toughest ones because no one ever heard of them. So if you brought it up, the first thing was I'd be like, oh, I'm helping the Khmer. And they'd be like Khmer Rouge. And I'm like, oh, just the opposite. That's the group that, the poor president. He was one of 13 kids. He's the only one alive. All 12 siblings were killed. So the Khmer Khrom people were stuck in the middle of the Khmer Rouge fighting that whatever side they went to they were seen as the other side. So it's an example of an indigenous people's in a country that no one knows anything about. So the first was just raising awareness so people know who they are. Second was sharing what they wanted because no one, they never had their voice heard. They'd just been made invisible in the modern history of the country. And then third was a strategy that doesn't threaten the country but that positively works towards improving the country for the Khmer Khrom but also for the entire country in a whole. So that's been amazing. I mean, they've gone from being really invisible to invincible. People around the world know who they are. They just got invited. In fact, on the recent trip I stopped in DC. On my way to Geneva and DC we were at a international think tank to put their case on the global scale with all the other Vietnamese groups that everyone is more familiar with. So I stopped in DC at eight. We did four hours. Did the think tank work, had some private meetings on the hill. Then I got on the next plane, flew to Geneva, landed in Geneva and then we were working on human rights in Cambodia because it's the 25th anniversary of the Paris peace agreements for Cambodia. So the good thing about Cambodia is they were able to get the peace but the second part is the human rights. Peace stops the, but human rights is kind of like the roadmap on how to move forward so that the country doesn't slide back. That's the exciting thing about human rights is it's a constant temperature check of how a country is doing. So certain human rights are being violated. You know it's gonna get worse. So we can actually prevent things as opposed to a lot of times in global affairs you try to get involved only after the bombs are falling and after people are dying. So I think that's the exciting thing about human rights is it's positive, it's proactive and you can prevent things. In a lot of cases. I think sometimes when we think about human rights because a lot of the news, the popular discourse on human rights is about how our government should try to get other countries to respect human rights. But it does seem to often come by criticizing them. As you were saying when you went to Dalu the president was very worried you were there just to criticize. But your approach seems to be like to, when we're trying to advance the human rights of one group it's not to the detriment of anybody but how do we approach that in a way that it enhances the enjoyment of human rights for everyone in a country. Yeah, I mean do you feel like this is an approach we're moving more towards? I do. I mean the exciting is when I first started it was definitely more of a fringe thing. You know, I mean tree hugger or loving everyone and helping everyone, peace prize kind of stuff seems like so distant from everyone. And now though I think the more people you talk to it's how people want to be treated. It's how people want to interact with one another. It's the golden rule just being exercised on a global level. So it's been exciting to see the growth of it without a doubt. And I can definitely see certain changes. In the United States we really haven't had a strong human rights movement for decades. And I was fortunate enough to be the national co-chair of the task force on the universal periodic review. So the universal periodic review is a new mechanism that was just created in 2006 and started its first cycle in 2008. And it's a new process at the human rights council in Geneva where every country's human rights record is reviewed. So I mean I'm excited right now we just are launching the third cycle. So next April may it'll be the first session of the third cycle. And I've had different positions on the national level. So the first I was just the Geneva coordinator which was good enough for me to be able to work with all the big NGOs and just help coordinating them in Geneva. But then for this last cycle I was the co-chair of the national task force. So we had 24 working groups. ACLU, Black Lives Matter. Everyone coming together saying this is the America we want. And so that's extremely humbling and extremely educational. You learn about all the issues directly from impacted individuals. And most importantly our approach of the framework we took for fundamental freedoms was beyond the what's wrong. Cause everyone can do that. Everyone can complain what do we want? What do you want? Like you wake up today, what's the ideal world? What does it look like? And then how do we get there? And that's what the recommendations from the human rights mechanisms create. So you actually sit there from that perspective of like this is what I want for my kids. This is what I want for our country. This is my vision. And it's a much more positive approach. Normally we're responding and putting out a fire of something negative. But it's so much more powerful when you're actually saying this is what I want. This is why I want it. This is what I'm gonna do for that. It just totally transforms the situation. So the tactics are much more dynamic and we've done lots of good things. Oh that sounds so interesting. Well let's take a short break right now and then come back and talk a bit more. So you are listening to Grace Cheng interviewing Joshua Cooper of the Hawaii Institute for Human Rights on Global Connections. Stay tuned, we'll be back in one minute. Hi, I'm Stacey Hayashi and you can catch me on Mondays at 11 on Think Tech Hawaii. Stacey to the rescue. See you then. Aloha. My name is John Wahee and I actually had a small part to do with what's happening today. Served actually in public office. But if you don't already know that, here's a chance to learn more about what's happening in our state by joining me for a talk story with John Wahee every other Monday. Thank you and I look forward to your seeing us in the future. Hello, I'm Mary Ann Sasaki. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii where some of the most interesting conversations in Honolulu go on. I have a show on Wednesdays from one to two called Life in the Law where we discuss legal issues, politics, governmental topics and a whole host of issues. I hope you'll join me. Hi, welcome back to Global Connections. I'm your host, Grace Chang, here with Joshua Cooper of the Hawaii Institute for Human Rights and we're talking about a human rights approach to global advocacy for peace, justice and sustainable development. Welcome back, Joshua. Great to be back. Okay, so we were talking earlier about human rights and how it sort of changed recently because initially I think when it was sort of revived after the end of the Cold War, a lot of countries sort of saw it as something to criticize the government, government felt it was an imposition from the West and I think even Western countries, especially United States, didn't really think of our situation as a human rights situation. But now it seems to be much more embraced on many different levels in different ways. Yeah, no, an exciting level is, truthfully, I remember when I was teaching human rights and I talked to like the mayor of Maui where I was teaching or we have a human rights on the Hill program in Washington, D.C. and we just celebrate our 15th annual human rights on the Hill course and people would say human rights, like that's everywhere else but on Earth, but here. I'd be like, no, human rights are here and they'd be like, how? I mean, our lives are perfect. So it's also a great way to hold up a lens even in Hawaii and say, well, what do we need? What can we do to improve and how do we do it? So that's a much better approach, I believe. And a lot of people are participating in it really do see the strength. It's solidarity, it builds solidarity among one another because we actually actively listen to one another. I actually listen to someone saying, this is a situation I live in and this is how it should change and I'm like, that's true. And then they're like, what do you care about? So it actually shows the intersectionality of all the issues that we have whereas everyone in the West, at least, we love seeing everything in silos. You're an economist or you're an educator or you're an activist and it's like human rights is a great framework that unites all the issues together that then allows us to take a comprehensive approach on how we're gonna create positive social change. So I've seen its benefits. Yeah, yeah. And it's not just that we have rights and they're recognizing the law and we try to enforce them but that there are all these conditions that are required for people to actually enjoy rights like sustainable development, addressing climate change issues. And so I think this approach that you're taking is very interesting as far as what it says about how we're understanding human rights today and making sure that people are able to enjoy them. Yeah, no, I mean, we've done different things like at the national level, let's look at the right to housing. Worked a lot with the great national coalition with Housing Urban Development and then with the White House. So we focused in the first universal periodic review on the problems with the right to housing but then we used the international law because they have exactly, as you said, all the elements of what a right to housing looks like. So it's how are we doing and you look at all those elements then you in a way build the house based on those rights and those elements and those conditions that I think as you framed it so well. And then that was the way to solve the situation. So working on the right to housing, we worked with those national coalitions. They then helped to help people at the local level. So there was a wave of criminalization of homeless activity. We then lobbied with HUD to then understand the human rights approach. HUD then included it in their point system. So if you actually criminalized housing rights problems in your community, you wouldn't get certain points which means you wouldn't get giant amounts of federal funding. So it was a really creative way to say these are the elements of housing as a human right. HUD recognizes that and a national department of justice supports it. So if communities are saying, oh, you know, scapegoating homelessness, they looked at it from that perspective. All of a sudden you're influencing national with the international as a leverage and helping people on the ground who are like, I'm just trying to survive. So I think the human rights approach is a great way for one, you engage with the people directly impacted. And that's the focus. And then from there, you go to what needs to be done in the policy. And that's a problem. Normally that's a lot of people with a lot of big degrees trying to solve something who aren't in that situation. So it's really bringing everyone to the table. I think that's the unifying element of human rights that you were talking about is it's come together as everyone. And then if we also make sure it's not just the West pointing, then it's also what we can do. So I think one of the exciting things that just took off was called human rights cities. So human rights cities just got probably going the last five years, but cities are taking a human rights approach to solve situations. And so in the US, we just had a first national workshop. We made that part of our 15th annual human rights on the Hill and we had a department of justice, department of housing, urban development. We had a state department. We had everyone there. And the exciting thing is we had Pittsburgh, Eugene, Oregon, Seattle, all the cities that are adopting human rights cities. And I was fortunate to be adopted and invited because Hawaii, we adopted at our annual human rights day at the state capital. We became the first state ever to be a state of human rights. So some cities exist, but Hawaii is a state of human rights. And we worked with a late representative, Mark Takai, before he went into the house. That was one of the last bills we worked on before he went up to there. So that was my idea was we could do it on all the islands, but let's do it as a state of human rights and keep that as really our marker for how we're doing it when we make all our government decisions. So I think that's good. So even that is unique, that cities look at being human rights cities and then all the functions they do, they think of their constituents and their citizens, not every four years when the election comes up, but on an everyday basis. I mean, this is such an interesting illustration of a global connection right here in Hawaii because you do a lot of very localized issue. We try to kind of foster that in our state and local communities, but also you do so much outreach in communities all over the world. And so this is kind of an, this is kind of an interesting part about your institute, the Hawaii Institute for Human Rights. Can you tell us a little bit more about the conception of that? Yeah, it actually grew out of a class I taught. So I grew up in a class and I had 12 amazing students and they said, you know, we don't care as much about the grades, we just wanna do good. And they said, let's create a nonprofit. So we actually created a nonprofit out of this class, the first human rights class I taught in Hawaii. And then we adopted the idea of let's have annuals. So we're like on our almost on our 20th annual human rights events summer seminar that we host every year in Hawaii. But we also have annual women's rights or human rights. We have Earth Day activities. We focus on peace day, we focus on children's rights. And then we came up with an idea over a decade ago that human rights is great, but you know, it's not at our state legislature. So we started human rights day during the legislative cycle. And then that's been great. Cause we have, we call it, what could we say it is? It's a really good gathering where it's kind of a career fair for the common good. So all the nonprofits come and line up around. So young people come and say, wow, what can I be? Which is good to not just say this is tourism and say this is what you want. And then the second thing is we have panels of human rights advocates coming from around the world to come and share. So we've got Gandhi's grandson. We've had advocates on women's rights around the world. We have indigenous leaders and they come and share. And then from there, we actually have adopted global instruments and resolutions and conventions at the local level in Hawaii. So it's really to connect the grassroots and the global. And then the exciting thing is because I have certain knowledge about the global system, a lot of people find me around the world and then ask me to go help them. So it's exciting because it's what you teach and discuss in the classroom. You get to apply it to improve people's lives. So that's the exciting part. So it's definitely based in Hawaii and we have interns every year. And I call them fellows instead because I want them to think of themselves as what do you want to be and how can this three months get you to where you want to go? The springboard, not to sit around and photocopy. So the exciting thing is I can see a lot of that happening. I also see a lot of the issues. Like you said, peace, justice, sustainable development, they're all connected. And so I really see that coming together with a lot of young people dreaming for their new future. I'd say one cool idea we came up with is called Aloha Aina Associates. And so it's actually focusing on tourism. So it's gonna focus just on trying to make our hotels a little bit more green by an annual competition. And now it's grown. So the idea is there's points. If they change the bulbs, that's 200 points. If they appoint a green manager, that's 500. If they get a green team, housing, lawn maintenance and management, then it's more points. So we're actually using an incentive system for initiatives that then make sure our tourism is rooted on human rights base for all the workers, first and foremost, for the guests. And now we even have other things where they go out and volunteer in the community. So then if you come to Hawaii, you're gonna get a more than enough experience going to a farm than if you just go on the little trail of plastic things to see in Hawaii, a paradise. So it's actually turning out great with the Loha and Associates that we have a whole year of gathering the points. So we launched that at the IUCN. And then on Earth Day, we'll announce the winner. And the award's gonna be an ahina, a silver sword. So the exciting thing is then every year we can get more and more green and can keep improving. Certain places you get points if you don't wash your towels every day. We're gonna have it where you even get breakfast, coupons and do things like that. And we're gonna do everything in English and in a little Hawaii. So it shows where you're at in Hawaii but also tourism then gives back instead of using all the resources, it's an idea to how to make it much more of a holistic process. So the human rights framework even for sustainable tourism and also the industry for the future of Hawaii is great. And now that we have the 17 goals, those are even other measurements to make it even better. So the exciting part is the world and everyone's sort of getting onto the same page. So at least we're all reading from the same book now. That's great. And you mentioned the IUCN, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature which had the World Congress year last month and you were working with that also. There were a lot of international officials and organizations in town. Yeah, I was very fortunate. There was a couple of things we did. First and foremost, there's the Special Operateur on Human Rights in the Environment. He's writing a study on human rights and biodiversity. So we actually had a event outside at the law school. And so he was gathering testimony from everyday people in Hawaii about biodiversity and human rights. And he'll use that in his report that he's presenting in March, April. So that's good. We also had people from different organizations come and speak outside at the University of Hawaii. We had film night. So all the National Geographic videos that they only showed at the Congress, we got permission from National Geographic and we showed those up at the University of Hawaii. We also were having the Leahi Millennium Peace Garden. So we had a couple of the people who were launching the Nature for All campaign come and share what Nature for All was on Saturday morning. So we had activities from Saturday to Saturday outside the convention center for everyone to know. But then also, Hawaii Institute for Human Rights was asked to partner with the United Nations Environment Program. And we moderated two panels and coordinated two events for indigenous peoples around the world. Well, that's excellent. Yeah, so it's good. And I know a lot of people are very concerned about a lot of the issues you raise and what they can do about them. So can you tell us as a final word what are some things they could do or find out more about your institute? Easiest is my emails, just Joshua Cooper Hawaii all spelled out at gmail.com. And if you do have an issue, we always get the phone calls and the emails and just try our best to help solve it on a case by case basis. So I mean, we're open to always helping people organize for themselves about what they believe in. Okay, that's wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on the program, Joshua. Thank you. I learned about all you've been doing very, very broad, encompassing so many different issues. So really interesting to have you speak on the show. Mahalo, thank you for hosting.