Academic profile

 

Dr Lovleen Bhullar is an Assistant Professor in Environmental Law in the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge. She is also a Fellow of Queens’ College. Previously, Dr Bhullar was an Assistant Professor in Birmingham Law School (2020-2024) and a Research Fellow in Regulation and Antimicrobial Resistance at Edinburgh Law School (2018-2020). 

 

Dr Bhullar is interested in the role of law and policy in addressing antimicrobial resistance, climate change, environmental degradation and water pollution, with a focus on the global majority regions. Her most recent publication is a co-edited volume titled Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Natural Resources Law in India (OUP 2024). Over the past couple of years, she has contributed to the development of a framework climate law for a state in India, and she was a member of the community of practice of the Environment and Human Rights workstream of the Prevention Project hosted by NYU. Dr Bhullar is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Environmental Law, the Law, Environment and Development (LEAD) Journal, and Environmental Policy and Law. 

 

Dr Bhullar holds an LLB degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, an LLM in Environmental Law (with Distinction) and a PhD from SOAS – University of London, and an MSc in Environmental Policy and Regulation (with Distinction) from the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

 

 

Teaching

 

Paper 3: Quantitative and Legal Methods for Land Economists

Paper 5: Environmental Economics and Law

Paper 9: Private Law

EP01: International Environmental Law

EP07: National, Comparative and European Environmental Law and Policy

 

 

Research interests

 

Dr Bhullar is currently pursuing three strands of research: (i) multi-level and multi-actor regulation of antimicrobial resistance in the environment, (ii) environmental duties of natural and legal persons inhabiting the global majority regions (with her research in Africa funded by a British Academy-Leverhulme Small Research Grant), and (iii) water security and climate change in South Asia (from 2025, as a senior researcher on an ERC Advanced Grant project). In addition, she has extensive research experience in law and policy relating to the environment, climate change, sanitation and water as well as related rights-based litigation in India. She has also worked on climate change and water governance issues in Southeast Asia. 

 

 

 

Publications

 

Journal articles

  • ‘Green Public Procurement of Pharmaceuticals as a Regulatory Response to Antimicrobial Resistance and its Compatibility with the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement’ (2024) 33(2) Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law 291-302

  • ‘Environmental Constitutionalism and Duties of Individuals in India’ (2022) 34(3) Journal of Environmental Law 399-418 [Honourable Mention, Richard Macrory Prize for the Best Paper in the Journal of Environmental Law 2022]

  • ‘The Regulation of Planetary Health Challenges: A Co-Benefits Approach for AMR and WASH’ (2022) 52 Environmental Policy and Law 289-99 (with Philippe Cullet)

  • Human rights perspective on pesticide exposure and poisoning in children: a case study of India’ (2021) 23(2) Health and Human Rights Journal 49-61 (with Leah Utyasheva)

  • ‘Water Security and International Law’ (2021) 17 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 261-76 (with Philippe Cullet & Sujith Koonan)

  • ‘Over-the-Counter Sales of Antibiotics for Human Use in India: The Challenges and Opportunities for Regulation’ (2021) 21(2) Medical Law International 147-173 (with Gerard Porter, Anita Kotwani & Jyoti Joshi)

  • ‘Using ‘Smart Regulation’ to Tackle Antimicrobial Resistance in Low- and Middle-income Countries’ (2020) 5 BMJ Global Health e001864 (with Gerard Porter et al)

  • ‘Regulating the Interactions Between Climate Change and Groundwater: Lessons from India’ (2017) 42(6) Water International 646-62 (with Philippe Cullet & Sujith Koonan)

  • ‘Inter-Sectoral Water Allocation and Conflicts – Perspectives from Rajasthan’ (2015) 50(34) Economic & Political Weekly 61-69 (with Philippe Cullet & Sujith Koonan)

  • ‘Climate Change Adaptation and Water Policy: Lessons from Singapore’ (2013) 21(3) Sustainable Development 152-59

  • ‘CDM and REDD+: A Comparative Perspective’ (2013) International Journal of Rural Law and Policy 1-8 

  • ‘Ensuring Safe Municipal Wastewater Disposal in India: Is there a Legal Basis?’ (2013) 25(2) Journal of Environmental Law 235-60

  • ‘Governance on Adaptation to Climate Change in the ASEAN Region’ (2011) 1 Carbon and Climate Law Review 82-90 (with Koh Kheng-Lian)

  • ‘Eco-Cities and Sustainable Cities – Whither?’ (2010) Social Space Journal 84-92 (with Koh Kheng-Lian & Asanga Gunawansa)

  • ‘The Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006: A Critical Appraisal’ (2008) 4(1) Journal of Law, Environment and Development 20-34

 

Edited books

  • Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Natural Resources Law in India (OUP 2024) (with Philippe Cullet & Sujith Koonan)

  • Right to Sanitation in India – Critical Perspectives (OUP 2019) (with Philippe Cullet & Sujith Koonan)

  • Sanitation Law and Policy in India – An Introduction to Basic Instruments (OUP 2015) (with Philippe Cullet)

  • Water Governance: An Evaluation of Alternative Architectures (Edward Elgar 2013) (with Asanga Gunawansa)

 

Book chapters

  • ‘Meanings of energy justice in the low-carbon transition’ in Giuseppe Bellantuouo & others (eds), Handbook of Energy Law in the Low-Carbon Transition (De Grutyer 2023) 

  • ‘Living Law: What Can Comparative Approaches Tell Us?’ in SJ Cooper-Knock & Duduzile S Ndlovu (eds), Liberating Comparisons (York Tree Publications 2021)

  • ‘Wastewater Reuse in Irrigated Agriculture in Urban and Peri-urban India:
    A Farmers’ Rights Perspective’ in Philippe Cullet & Sujith Koonan (eds), Research Handbook on Law, Environment and the Global South 396-410 (Edward Elgar 2019)

  • ‘The Judiciary and the Right to Environment in India: Past, Present and Future’ in Shibani Ghosh (ed), Indian Environmental Law: Key Concepts and Principles 21-54 (Orient BlackSwan 2019)

  • ‘Making the Polluter Pay in India: Scope and Limits of Judicial Decisions’ in Shibani Ghosh (ed), Indian Environmental Law: Key Concepts and Principles 152-91 (Orient BlackSwan 2019)

  • ‘The Environmental Dimension of the Right to Sanitation’ in Philippe Cullet, Sujith Koonan & Lovleen Bhullar (eds), Right to Sanitation in India – Critical Perspectives 261-84 (OUP 2019)

  • ‘Sanitation, Gender Inequality and Implications for Rights’ in Philippe Cullet, Sujith Koonan & Lovleen Bhullar (eds), Right to Sanitation in India – Critical Perspectives 380-401 (OUP 2019) (with Sujith Koonan)

  • ‘ASEAN: The Singapore Declaration on Climate Change, Energy and the Environment, 2007 and Beyond’ in Werner Scholtz & Jonathan Verschuuren (eds), Regional Environmental Law – Transregional Comparative Lessons in Pursuit of Sustainable Development 282-310 (Edward Elgar 2015) (with Koh Kheng-Lian)

  • ‘Urban Water Supply Governance in China: Legal and Policy Framework’ in Asanga Gunawansa & Lovleen Bhullar (eds), Water Governance: An Evaluation of Alternative Architectures 216-41 (Edward Elgar 2013)

  • ‘Community Capacity Building and the Environment: Sustainable Development and Environmental Justice’ in Antonella Noya, Emma Clarence & Gary Craig (eds), Community Capacity Building – Creating a Better Future Together 131-64 (OECD Publishing 2009) (with Maria Adebowale)

 

Others

  • ‘Water security and climate change’ in University of Birmingham, Addressing the Climate Challenge 47-49 (September 2021) https://blog.bham.ac.uk/publicaffairs/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2021/09/Addressing-the-climate-challenge.pdf

 

 

 

Category/Classification

 

environment, water, climate change, antimicrobial resistance, law