NEIL SILVA

Neil Silva serves as Legal Officer at the University of the Philippines (UP) Law Center’s Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea; Lecturer at the UP College of Law and at the Development Academy of the Philippines; and Fellow at the Philippine Public Safety College. He was previously a project member on Countering Foreign Interference and Malign Influence at the Ateneo Policy Center; and legal adviser to the National Coast Watch Council Secretariat and to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking Secretariat.

He was legal adviser to the Philippine delegation to negotiate the Philippine-US Agreement on Enhanced Defense Cooperation in 2013-2014; a member of the delegations to defend the Partial Submission on the ECS in the Benham Rise Region and to negotiate the ASEAN Convention on Trafficking in Persons; a member of the editorial board on the Partial Submission on the ECS in the West Palawan Region; and a member of Track 2 delegations for dialogues with Australia, China, and Taiwan ROC. He also worked on the review or implementation of agreements with the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

He has delivered briefings for Philippine and foreign bodies, including during the Philippine Senate’s deliberations on the Maritime Zones Law and Archipelagic Sea Lanes Law in 2023-2024; at the USINDOPACOM’s MILOPS 2022; and for the NATO ACO OLA’s international law conferences on 2023 and 2025 and its legal warfare seminars.

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