Louise Rands Silva, who has died of cancer aged 57, worked as my assistant for nearly 30 years, on cases, books and a myriad of other activities relating to matters of international law and justice. She also had a strong commitment to community engagement, working in parallel in education, for Sure Start, as a forest school leader, at a school working with children with behavioural difficulties, and as a teaching assistant at a primary school.
Born in Byfleet, Surrey, Louise was the daughter of Barbara Wright, a primary school teacher, and John Rands, a public health inspector. When the family moved to north Devon she went to school at South Molton community college and Kelly college, then spent a year working on a kibbutz in Israel. In 1986 she went to St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, to study English literature. She moved to Brazil, to teach English as a foreign language, returning to London to work as a paralegal at a Brazilian law firm.
