Erica Gaston

Erica is a human rights lawyer consulting on civilian casualties for the Open Society Institute in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In addition to monitoring the conduct of warring parties, much of her work with OSI focuses on supporting civil society involvement in these issues. Prior to her work with OSI, she was the Afghanistan research fellow for the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, whose mission is to encourage warring parties to provide compensation, victim assistance, recognition or other redress to victims of conflict.

Prior to her work inAfghanistan, Erica graduated from Harvard Law School in 2007. During her law school career, she worked as a researcher and writer on several advocacy projects with the Harvard Human Rights Program and Human Rights Watch. She also helped provide research and analysis for the United Nations Committee Against Torture and Senator Richard J. Durbin's Judiciary Committee Staff. In addition to her human rights work, she has published articles related to the accountability of private security companies, issues and problems inherent in the humanitarian project, and the improvement of emergency preparedness for homeland security and counter-terrorism purposes. Erica graduated with a B.A. in International Relations, with a specialization in International Security, from Stanford University.