Gino Cocchiaro is a lawyer with Natural Justice, a South African-based, non-profit legal practice seeking to ensure conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity through the self-determination of indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs). Natural Justice works in Africa, South Asia and Latin America.

Cocchiaro’s work focuses on access and benefit-sharing (ABS) under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the protection of traditional knowledge (TK). One of his core activities at Natural Justice is advising communities on the development of bio-cultural community protocols (BCPs). Before joining Natural Justice, Cocchiaro served in 2009-10 as a Legal Researcher at the International Development Law Organisation (IDLO).

Cocchiaro joined Open AIR at its launch in 2011, and was one of the researchers and authors of the case study published in 2014 as Consideration of a Legal “Trust” Model for the Kukula Healers’ TK Commons in South Africa.