Dr Birsha Ohdedar

Birsha Ohdedar is Lecturer in Climate Change and Environmental Law. He joined SOAS in April 2022. Birsha holds degrees in Law and Political Studies from the University of Auckland, New Zealand and a LLM and PhD from SOAS, University of London.

Birsha’s current work focuses on environmental and climate justice, human rights, climate litigation and water. His work interrogates the role of law in the broader political economy of the environmental and climate crisis. His work adopts an interdisciplinary approach, engaging primarily with political ecology and critical geography. Birsha works on these issues at the international and domestic law level (with a regional focus on India). His doctoral research examined the topic of the human right to water in the context of climate change with a case study on India.

Birsha is an editor of the Law, Environment and Development Journal (LEAD Journal). He is a Research Associate with the International Environmental Law Research Centre (IELRC) and is a member of the Law, Environment and Development Centre. Birsha previously taught at the University of Essex (2019-2022).

Prior to entering academia, Birsha practised law for several years. He began his career at a large law firm in New Zealand, before working with human rights lawyers’ collectives and NGOs in Bangalore, India on land rights and labour issues. He then worked in law firms in London, advising on renewable energy and climate change law. Between 2014-2019, he also regularly advised at the UN Climate Change negotiations through Legal Response International, an organisation providing legal advice to small island developing states, least developed countries, and civil society actors.