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Biography
Lavanya Rajamani is a Professor of International Environmental Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, and Yamani Fellow in Public International Law, St Peter's College, Oxford. She was formerly a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, where she now holds a Visiting Professorship. Before that she held a University Lecturer in Environmental Law, and Fellow & Director of Studies in Law at Queens’ College, Cambridge. Lavanya holds an LLM from Yale, a DPhil and BCL from Oxford, where she was a Rhodes scholar, and a B.A.LL.B. (Honours) from National Law School, Bangalore, where she graduated at the top of her class with several gold medals.
Lavanya writes, teaches and advises on international environmental law, in particular international climate change law and policy. Her recent book ‘International Climate Change Law’ (Oxford University Press, UK, 2017), co-authored with Daniel Bodansky and Jutta Brunnée won the 2018 American Society of International Law Certificate of Merit in a Specialized Area of International Law. Her other books include ‘Promoting Compliance in the Emerging Climate Regime (CUP, 2011, co-editor), ‘Implementation of International Environmental Law’ (Hague Academy of International Law, 2011, co-editor), ‘Climate Change Liability: Transnational Law and Practice’ (CUP, 2011, co-editor), ‘Differential Treatment in International Environmental Law’ (Oxford University Press, UK, 2006, author), and numerous peer-reviewed articles in law journals.
Her latest manuscript, titled ‘Innovation and Experimentation in the International Climate Change Regime’, based on a Special Course she delivered at the Hague Academy of International Law in July 2018, will appear as part of the Receuil des Cours/ Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law in early 2020. She is currently co-editing the second edition of the ‘Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law’ with Professor Jacqueline Peel, University of Melbourne.
Lavanya was a KFG Senior Research Fellow at the Berlin-Potsdam Research Group ‘The International Rule of Law – Rise or Decline?’ and a Sir Frank Holmes Visiting Fellow at the University of Victoria, Wellington. She has held visiting Professorships and taught courses on public international law at Ashoka University, India; international environmental law on the MBA in Green Energy at the Bologna Business School; international climate change law at the National University of Singapore and the University of Aix-en-Provence; human rights and environmental law on the Masters in International Human Rights Law at Oxford; and human rights and climate change law on the Melbourne Law Masters (MLM).
Lavanya serves as Coordinating Lead Author of the chapter on ‘International Cooperation’ in the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She has also served as Rapporteur for the International Law Association’s Committee on Legal Principles Relating to Climate Change, and as Research Director for the Hague Academy of International Law’s Centre for Studies and Research.
Lavanya’s academic work on the international climate change regime is informed by extensive practice. She has worked on and tracked the climate negotiations in different capacities, including as a negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, and legal advisor to the UN Climate Secretariat, the Danish Ministry of Climate Change and the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests. She was part of the UNFCCC core drafting and advisory team at the 2015 Paris negotiations, and, was identifed by Climate Home News as one of the ‘Women to watch ahead of the UN’s 2015 Climate Summit.’
Publications
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13. Sorted by year, then title.
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L Rajamani, 'Integrating Human Rights in the Paris Climate Architecture: Contest, Context, and Consequence' (2019) 9 Climate Law -
L Rajamani and D Bodansky, 'The Paris Rulebook: Balancing International Prescriptiveness with National Discretion' (2019) International and Comparative Law Quarterly -
L Rajamani, 'The Warsaw Climate Negotiations: Emerging Understandings and Battle Lines on the Road to the 2015 Climate Agreement' (2019) 63 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 721 -
L Rajamani, 'India’s approach to international law in the climate change regime' (2018) 57 Indian Journal of International Law 1 -
D Bodansky and L Rajamani, 'The Issues that Never Die' (2018) 12 Carbon and Climate Law Review -
L Rajamani and J Werksman, 'The legal character and operational relevance of the Paris Agreement's temperature goal' (2018) Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, -
D Bodansky, J Brunnée and L Rajamani, International Climate Change Law (Oxford University Press 2017) -
L Rajamani and J Brunnée, 'The Legality of Downgrading Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement: Lessons from the US Disengagement' (2017) 29 Journal of Environmental Law -
L Rajamani, ' Ambition and Differentiation in the 2015 Paris Agreement: Interpretative Possibilities and Underlying Politics' (2016) International and Comparative Law Quarterly 1 -
S Maljean-Dubois and L Rajamani, 'L'Accord de Paris sur les Changements Climatiques du 12 Decembre 2015' (2016) Annuaire Français De Droit International LXI – 2015 – CNRS Éditions -
L Rajamani, 'The 2015 Paris Agreement: Interplay Between Hard, Soft and Non-Obligations' (2016) 28 Journal of Environmental Law 337 -
L Rajamani, 'The Devilish Details: Key Legal Issues in the 2015 Climate Negotiations ' (2015) 78 Modern Law Review 826–853 -
H Winkler and L Rajamani, 'CBDR&RC in a regime applicable to all' (2013) 14 Climate Policy 102
Research programmes
Research Interests
International Environmental Law, International Climate Change Law, Compliance, Differentiation in International Law, Human Rights and the Environment