About Milani
MILANI B. TRASK was a convener of Ka Lahui Hawaii, the Sovereign Hawaiian nation, and served two, four-year terms (1987-1998) as Kia Aina (Prime Minister). She led their work on the World Conference on Racism. Milani is an attorney and expert in international human rights law. She is one of the primary drafters of the Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples that passed the UN General Assembly in 2007. Milani served as an Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus Pacific Basin Representative, International Coalition of NGO’S.
In 2001, she was nominated and appointed as the Pacific representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to serve a three-year term beginning Jan. 1, 2002. Milani is an indigenous expert to the United Nations in international and human rights law. She is an instructor with the International Training Center for Indigenous Peoples in Nuuk, Greenland and a lecturer with the University of Hawaii Center for Hawaiian Studies. Her work has been cited by the Hawaii Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and published by Cultural Sitroivai and IWGIA magazines on issues relating to native people’s human and civil rights.
From 1998 to 2000, Ms. Trask was elected to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs as Trustee at Large. Ms. Trask has served as the Executive Director of the Gibson Foundation from 1987 to present, a private, non-profit dedicated to assisting native Hawaiians with housing issues and housing programs.
In 1995, Ms. Trask was elected the second Vice Chair of the General Assembly of Nations of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organizations (UNPO), an international body comprised of the unrecognized nations of the world. UNPO was founded in 1991 by his holiness, the Dalai Lama, as an alternative forum to the United Nations. Ms. Trask assumed the position vacated by Ken Sarowira, the Ogoni human rights’ advocate, who was killed by the Nigerian Government.
Ms. Trask was a founding member and former Chair of the Indigenous Women’s Network; a coalition of Native American women whose work includes community-based economic development, social justice, human rights, housing, and health. Ms. Trask is an acknowledged peace advocate and has studied and worked for seven years with Mother Teresa of Calcutta. In October 1993, Ms. Trask was invited to become a member of the prestigious Indigenous Initiative for Peace (IIP), a global body of indigenous leaders convened by Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Turn, the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador to the UN Decade on Indigenous Peoples.
