Andrew Silver | Former Public Interest Fellow

During his fellowship, Andrew Silver divided his time between working for the firm and working at Human Rights First. At the firm, Andrew gained immediate exposure to the firm’s public interest practice, working on products liability and food mislabeling matters in the firm’s consumer protection practice, in addition to working on False Claims Act whistleblower matters. Andrew worked alongside the firm’s partners and associates on significant substantive litigation projects, including taking depositions, motion practice, and written discovery.

Andrew also spent two months at Human Rights First’s D.C. headquarters and worked on a number of projects within different programs at the organization. Under the supervision of HRF’s International Legal Director, he worked on a project detailing the current state of the law regarding the enforceability of human rights and humanitarian law treaties in United States courts. The paper discussed the development of treaty enforceability law, detailed recent decisions, and identified questions that remain unsettled.

Andrew also worked on a project with HRF’s Fighting Discrimination program, examining recent developments in Russia and other Eastern European countries involving laws that criminalize purported “homosexual propaganda.” The project was designed to help HRF formulate strategies to reach out to LGBT-friendly multinational corporations with presences in those countries to educate them about the laws and suggest that they advocate against them. Andrew wrote a paper which outlined the current state of the laws in Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova, discussed how the laws violate international human rights standards (such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), discussed how certain corporate non-discrimination policies could come into conflict with the new laws, and suggested methods for how companies might take action.

Finally, as part of HRF’s background work investigating how it might expand its work into a number of countries, Andrew worked with staff from its Human Rights Defenders program doing background research on Pakistan. He attended panel discussions held by other organizations to learn more about Pakistan and contributed research identifying the major United States policymakers on Pakistan. For the project, Andrew also attended a meeting with personnel at the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.