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Born in Bulgaria at a time when the country was a satellite state of the Soviet Union and citizens were vulnerable to the whims of the communist regime, Silvia became interested in the relationship between the state and the rights of the individual from a young age. Having built up her knowledge of Japan during undergraduate studies in that country, she would go on to write a doctoral dissertation on the rights of the detained within the Japanese criminal justice system. This choice of focus was a function of her belief that, being associated with evildoing, criminal detainees, who are also importantly held in isolation from society, are the group of people most susceptible to having their rights violated, and that as such their case would offer the best chance for clarifying the conditions for rights’ realisation. In making her move to Kyoto, Silvia has broadened her research to not only treat the topic of human rights more generally, but also to cover the entire region of Asia.