The Artistic Approach to Advancing Human Rights

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Human Rights are not only enshrined in the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and supported across the world through UN agencies, social justice movements, and activists, but they are are also seen in statues, murals, street art, photographs, textiles, and other art forms.

In this special GEOS session celebrating UN Human Rights Day, UNA-USA will feature pieces of art that have been submitted as visual indicators of human rights. Guest speakers will offer perspective and context regarding the artwork and related UN activities.

Featured speakers:

Grace Anderson

Policy Associate, United Nations Foundation

Grace Anderson is currently a policy associate at the United Nations Foundation focusing on human rights and girls & women work in the New York office. A recent graduate from Stanford University, Grace was one of three undergraduates awarded with the 2019 Tom Ford Fellowship which provides young professionals with intensive, mentored experiences in domestic foundations. Grace holds a BA in International Relations with honors from Stanford and published an honors thesis on UN humanitarian interventions and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). She was also awarded with Stanford’s Award of Excellence which recognizes the top 10% of each graduating class. Grace is primarily interested in issues at the intersection of human rights and international security and has previously held positions at the State Department in the UN Political Affairs Office, the International Rescue Committee in the President’s Office, and the Center for American Studies in Rome. Grace also worked in the Office of Dr. Condoleezza Rice at The Hoover Institution as a researcher and is listed in the acknowledgements of Dr. Rice’s most recent book, To Build a Better World: Choices to End the Cold War and Create a Global Commonwealth.

Joshua Cooper

Joshua Cooper balances academia and advocacy focusing on international human rights law through diplomacy and direct action. He is able to persuade passionately and pressure persistently in global human rights mechanisms with intensity and intellect. Cooper is an educator with over a decade of experience teaching at numerous higher education institutions in Hawaii. He has developed curriculum in over 40 courses in political science to focus on core themes of nonviolence, ecology, human rights and social justice. Cooper has taught over 100 classes at the University of Hawaii. He teaches at summer programs with a specialty on human rights of indigenous peoples at the National University of Ireland, Galway and the School of Law at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington D.C. as well as intensive courses on emerging issues in peace and human rights at the International Training Center for Teaching Peace and Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. He is currently the Dean of the International Human and Peoples Rights Law Program in Vienna, Austria.

Cooper is a human rights advocate engaging in global and regional mechanisms guaranteeing fundamental freedoms. Cooper has participated as an official observer at United Nations meetings in both the charter and treaty bodies of the human rights machinery for over a decade. He also negotiated the recent UN Sustainable Development Goals for the 2015 development agenda. Cooper will participate in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations in Paris in December 2015.

Cooper was recently appointed on the US Human Rights Network Universal Periodic Review Task Force Co-Chair at the UN Human Rights Council. He briefs fellow members on the intricate workings and also developing strategy. Cooper presented keynote addresses to nationwide gatherings of human rights groups to guarantee promotion and protection of human rights. He continues to volunteer for various indigenous peoples movements in the global human rights machinery.