James Silk is Associate Clinical Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Director of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. Since 1999 he has been Executive Director of the Law School’s Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights.
From 1994 to 1999 Professor Silk was a director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights in Washington, D.C., where, in addition to guiding the organisation’s advocacy, he was deeply involved in human rights issues in China, child labor, and corporate responsibility.
After graduating in 1989 from Yale Law School, he was an attorney at the Washington law firm of Arnold & Porter, where his pro bono work included representing a Virginia death row inmate in his appeals. Before attending law school, Professor Silk was editor, policy analyst and senior writer for the U.S. Committee for Refugees. He has a B.A. in economics from the University of Michigan and an M.A. in the humanities from the University of Chicago.