Magnitsky Awards
Winner’s Bio

Brandon Silver is an international human rights lawyer and founding Director of Policy and Projects at the Canada-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

In this capacity, Brandon serves on the legal teams of prisoners of conscience, working to secure freedom for dissidents around the world whose release can transform the movements and societies they lead.

He has successfully contributed to the release and resettlement in Canada of several political prisoners and hostages. He helped facilitate the escape of Iranian dissidents, the rescue of a Kabul school being targeted by the Taliban, was a leader in the campaign to free Russian pro-democracy leader Vladimir Kara-Murza and is serving as counsel to families of hostages held in Gaza and Palestinians persecuted by Hamas.

In 2016, the World Economic Forum named him a “Global Shaper,” and in 2022 he was named one of Canada’s “Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers” by Canadian Lawyer Magazine.

Brandon is winning the Magnitsky Award for ‘Outstanding Human Rights Lawyer’, in recognition of his commitment to human rights and his effectiveness in supporting human rights campaigns all around the world. Brandon, in the words of Sir Bill Browder, “is the most effective human rights lawyer, that you may never have heard of.”