Andrew Friedman

Andrew Friedman is a senior fellow in the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Andrew came to CSIS from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where he served as a democracy officer with USAID’s Bureau for Africa, providing technical and strategic guidance for democracy, right, and governance work across the region. He also co-led USAID's Executive Committee on the 2021 Summit for Democracy and coordinated the anti-corruption session of the Civil Society Forum at the 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit. While with USAID, Andrew joined CSIS's Africa Policy Accelerator, where he also served as a board member.

Prior to his time in government, he served as a legal and democratic governance consultant working with various UN agencies, including the Secretariat, UN Women, and multiple UN Development Program Country Offices on constitutional and legal reform, good governance, transitional justice, and human rights. He also occasionally teaches courses in international law, serving as an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Law. He is also a member and contributor to both the International Academy of Constitutional Law and the African Network for Constitutional Lawyers, and he was recognized with an Amicus Mundi award from We The Action for pro bono work assisting in the passage of laws expanding the rights of sexual assault survivors in U.S. states.

Selected op-eds/publications:

• Compliance without Ratification: Using International Law in Non-Binding Scenarios, 33 Société québécoise de droit international/Quebec Journal of International Law 137 (2021)
• States, Countries and Peoples: A Comparative Look at Bicameralism in African Federal States, 42 Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 165 (2018)
• Boumediene v. Bush, Invited Contribution, 1 Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law 736 (2018)
• What can Corporations do when they cannot Boycott? Renewing the Sullivan Principles for States with Mineral Wealth, 2 Journal of International Human Rights Law 1 (2017)
• Can Constitutional Drafters See the Future? No, and it’s time we stop pretending they can, 46 Southwestern Law Review 29 (2016)
• Transitional Justice and Local Ownership: A Framework for the Protection of Human Rights, 46 Akron Law Review 727 (2013)
• Kagame’s Rwanda: Can an Authoritarian Development Model be Squared with Democracy and Human Rights?, 14 Oregon Review of International Law 253 (2012)
• Beyond Cherry-Picking: Selection Criteria for the Use of Foreign Law in Domestic Constitutional Jurisprudence, 44 Suffolk University Law Review 873 (2011)
• Dead Hand Constitutionalism: Honduras and the Danger of Eternity Clauses in New Democracies, 4 Mexican Law Review 77 (2011)
• Operationalizing the Rio Principles: Using the Successes of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative to create a Framework for Rio Implementation, 12 University of Botswana Law Journal 73 (2011)
• Pragmatism over Idealism: Public Interest Advocacy in the People’s Republic of China and the Importance of Collaboration, 27 Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook of International Law and Affairs 97 (2011)
• Flexible Arbitration for the Developing World: Piero Foresti and the Future of Bilateral Investment Treaties in the Global South, 7 Brigham Young International Law and Management Review 37 (2010)

Chair: Constitutionalism, Courts and Democracy in Kenya, African Network of Constitutional Lawyers, Biennial Conference, (October 2021)

Compliance without Ratification – International Law in Domestic Legal Regimes, Selected Presentation, Aix- Marseille University, Inside Workshop on Compliance Theories in International Human Rights Law, (April 2020)

Drafting for the Future: The Trouble with Constitutional Privacy Provisions and the Speed of Technological Advancement, Selected Presentation, New York Law School, Twenty Years of South African Constitutionalism, (November 2014)

What can Corporations do when they cannot Boycott? Renewing the Sullivan Principles for States with Mineral Wealth. Selected Presentation, University of Minnesota College of Law, American Society of International Law: Midwest Interest Group Workshop (September 2014)

Selected Presentation, West Virginia University College of Law, Business and Human Rights: Moving

Forward, Looking Back (September 2013) Transitional Justice and Local Ownership: A Framework for the Protection of Human Rights, Selected Presentation, Albany Law School, Africa Interest Group: American Society for International Law, Africa and International Law: Taking Stock and Moving Forward (April 2012)

Kagame’s Rwanda: Can an Authoritarian Development Model be squared with Democracy and Human Rights?, Selected Presentation, University of Oregon, Third World Approaches to International Law: Capitalism and the Common Good, (October 2011)