James Cooper is Professor of Law and Director of International Legal Studies at California Western. Since 1998, Professor Cooper has directed Proyecto ACCESO, a judicial technology transfer project funded by governments, foundations, and international agencies, raising more than $US 5 million for this initiative. As a consultant to the U.S. Department of State, the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Development Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Bolivian President's Office for the Constituent Assembly negotiations, Mexico's Executive Branch (Los Pinos), Paraguay's Senate, and a number of other governments, international agencies, regional aid organizations and technical cooperation agencies, Professor Cooper advises on leapfrog technologies and leads reform projects. Additionally, he has been a member of the U.S. government's delegation to the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Professor Cooper also directs the Chile Summer Program for the Consortium for Innovative Legal Education. He has been a Visiting Professor at UC San Diego's Earl Warren College, a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies at UC San Diego, a Visiting Professor at Franz von Liszt Institute at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany, and a Short Term Visiting Scholar at the University of Macau. Cooper is a co-director of the International Post Graduate Program with University of Heidelberg, University of Chile, and CEDEP in Asuncion, Paraguay and a member of the academic staff of Heidelberg Center for Latin America since 2004. A Cambridge University-trained Barrister and Solicitor, he started his career with Baker & McKenzie, facilitating international business transactions and has been a member of the faculty at the University of Strathclyde Law School in Glasgow, Scotland and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.
Professor Cooper's public policy work has been commissioned by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation of Germany. His scholarship has appeared in leading journals in North America, South America, and Europe. He contributes to newspapers, television, and radio news programs including El Mercurio, Globe and Mail, Miami Herald, Providence Journal, Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, San Diego Union Tribune, Marie Claire, National Public Radio's Marketplace, Latino U.S.A., and The World, Canadian Broadcast Corporation's As It Happens and Newsworld, Irish Radio, Bloomberg Law, NBC News, Univision News, and Fox News. Professor Cooper has directed and produced documentary films and public service announcements for the BBC, Channel Four (UK), and the Bolivian, Chilean, German, and U.S. Governments.
A frequent speaker, Cooper has given presentations at the Directors Guild of America, Hague Appeal for Peace, Mondaneum, United Nations Congress on Public International Law, United Nations Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues, Commonwealth Club of California, COMICON, Auditoria Democratica Andina, National Council for Juvenile and Family Court Judges, Rotary Club, World Bank, a joint session of the Paraguayan Congress, the House of Representatives Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, and the World Affairs Council. Professor Cooper has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal and in The Washington Post and featured in the Daily Mail, New York Times, South China Morning Post, Time Magazine, and USA Today.
After more than two decades of disruption work in the legal sectors of Latin America, Professor Cooper’s work has recently focused on the legal regulation of emerging technologies. He co-founded the One World Blockchain Alliance, a network that debuted at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and has been an advisor to blockchain companies in Asia. Professor Cooper has also written extensively on FINETCH. Some of his opinion pieces have been published in The Taipei Times, The International Business Times, The Business Times of Singapore, and The Hill.