Changho Kim was born and grew up in Japan as a 2.5-generation Korean ethnic minority. After becoming a lawyer licensed in Japan in 2008, he was actively involved in various projects working for the elimination of discrimination against Koreans and other minority groups in Japan. He took the initiative to draft a shadow report for the UN CERD Committee in 2014 and 2018 about hate speech and hate crimes against Koreans in Japan and presented the issue in front of the Committee members. He worked with other Japanese lawyers and activists to make a bill that would ban racial discrimination. From 2016 to 2018, he served as a deputy secretary general of Human Rights Now, a Japan-based human rights organization. Changho also worked for many human rights organizations, including the international human rights committee of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and the Lawyers Association of Zainichi Koreans (Koreans in Japan).
Changho holds a BA in law from the University of Tokyo and earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Chicago Law School. He was a senior minorities fellow of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2015.