Academic profile
Malavika Rao is a Postdoctoral Researcher at CEENRG, Department of Land Economy, at the University of Cambridge. She is a recipient of the Post-doc Mobility Fellowship (2024-2026) awarded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Malavika holds a PhD in International Law from the Geneva Graduate Institute (2024), an LLM in Environmental Law, and Energy and Clean Technology Law from the University of California, Berkeley (2017), and a bachelor’s degree in law from Christ University, India (2016). Prior to joining the PhD program, she worked as a Utility Justice Legal Fellow at The Utility Reform Network (TURN) in San Francisco (2017-2018).
Malavika’s areas of research are environmental law, migration law, the right to food, and climate change. Her doctoral work explored the application of the principle of non-refoulement in international law to people fleeing food deprivation. As a post-doc at CEENRG, Malavika will explore the international legal infrastructure underpinning food flows and food distribution. Malavika is also affiliated with the Refugee Law Initiative (RLI) at the School of Advanced Study, University of London.
Publications
- International Protection, Disasters and Climate Change (co-authored), International Journal of Refugee Law, OUP, 2024.
- A TWAIL Perspective on Loss and Damage from Climate Change: Reflections from Indira Gandhi’s Speech at Stockholm, Asian Journal of International Law, CUP (2022).
- Should Internal Migrants Who Cannot Return Home Due To COVID-19 be Treated as Disaster IDPs? Lessons from India, Refugee Survey Quarterly (Special Issue on Internal Displacement), OUP (2020).
- India’s pandemic exodus was a biological disaster and stranded migrant workers should be classified as internally displaced, The Conversation (2021).
- India: Los millones de trabajadores afectados por el éxodo pandémico deben ser considerados desplazados internos (translated), The Conversation (2021).
Category/Classification
International law, environment, migration, right to food