Timothy Cooper is currently the Executive Director of Worldrights, a non-governmental organization (NGO) founded in 2003. It specializes in human rights in China and the United States. Mr. Cooper enjoys nearly fifteen years of experience in human rights advocacy, international human rights law and the promotion of pro-democracy causes around the world.
Mr. Cooper has appeared before numerous international human rights bodies, including the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the Organization of American States' (OAS) Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
Recently, Worldrights has lobbied successfully for the passage of resolutions on behalf of imprisoned Chinese dissidents by the Parliament of Canada, the United States House of Representatives, the British House of Commons, and the Taiwan Legislative Yuan. It has also been instrumental in securing interventions in cases by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Rapporteur on Torture, the UN General-Secretary on Human Rights Defenders, and the Foreign Minister of Canada.
In March, 2007, Mr. Cooper succeeded in securing a recommendation from the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that called on the US Congress to grant the residents of Washington, DC full representation in Congress.
In October 2006, Mr. Cooper won a decision by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that found the US Government in violation of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights for denying detainees the right to a fair trial in its "war on terror". These detainees had been held in CIA-operated, secret prisons, or so-called "black sites", around the world.
In July 2006, Mr. Cooper appeared before the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva and argued that the status of DC residents constituted a violation of the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, one of the world's leading human rights treaties. The Human Rights Committee agreed and expressed concern about the unrepresented status of DC residents in the US Congress and issued recommendations to the US in its Concluding Observations and Recommendations.
In 2005, Mr. Cooper organized a campaign that resulted in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly passing a resolution at its annual meeting, calling on the US Congress to grant full and equal representation in Congress to the residents of the District of Columbia.
Earlier in 2005, Mr. Cooper briefed the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) US Election Observation Mission on the disenfranchisement of DC residents, which led to the inclusion of the issue in the OSCE's 2004 US Presidential Election Observation Mission report. The report declared that the US position regarding the citizens of Washington, DC was a violation of US OSCE human dimension commitments.
In 2004, Mr. Cooper won a landmark human rights case before the Organization of American States' (OAS) Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. After ten years of litigation, the Commission declared the US government to be in violation of internationally recognized human rights standards by denying 570,000 DC residents equal congressional voting representation.
In 2003, Mr. Cooper won a major human rights case before the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of Chinese dissident Dr. Wang Bingzhang, who was sentenced to life in prison for "espionage" and "leading a terrorist" organization in 2003 by China. The UN Working Group declared China's detention of Dr. Wang to be a violation of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Dr. Wang's right to a fair trial. Dr. Wang is known as the "father" of the overseas China democracy movement.
From 1999-2003, Mr. Cooper was the International Director of the Free China Movement and the honorary ambassador-at-large for the China Democracy Party. From 1996-2002, Mr. Cooper was the Executive director of Democracy First. From 1997-1999, he was the cofounder and leader of Stand Up for Democracy in Washington, DC, a coalition of over ninety organizations. From 1993-2004, Mr. Cooper was the Executive Director of the Statehood Solidarity Committee, the citizen's group that brought the legal challenge on behalf of DC's voting rights status before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
In 2001, Mr. Cooper headed a national delegation of US-based NGOs to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in Geneva in 2001, presenting "shadow" reports and testimony to the UN body on US compliance under the CERD Convention.
In 2000, Mr. Cooper chaired the Asia Peace Conference committee, which hosted and facilitated the Asia Peace Conference at George Washington University. The conference was designed to initiate conversation for understanding in areas of ancient ethnic conflict among representatives of Tibetan, Uighur, Inner Mongolian, Taiwanese, and leading overseas Chinese democracy dissident communities.
Mr. Cooper has published numerous writings on democracy and human rights. They include, among others, articles published in The Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Legal Times, and The Chicago Sun-Times. He has been interviewed and quoted by AP, Reuters, AFP, South China Morning Post, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Chicago Sun Times, Miami Herald, Geneva Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, CNN, Fox Television, ABC, NBC, BBC, the History Channel, Bloomberg, Cox Television, German International Radio, Radio Free Asia, and VOA.
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