Labiba Rukhsana

Labiba is a recipient of the Bloomsbury Scholarship. The supervisory committee guiding her interdisciplinary project is a collaboration between the School of Law at SOAS and the Environmental Health team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). 

Labiba’s doctoral research involves an environmental justice framework for collaboration and integration of the governance of water, environment and health to better address wicked problems like antimicrobial resistance. Labiba is using Bangladesh as a case study. The project draws from environmental and human rights law, public health, epidemiology, microbiology, anthropology, political science and other disciplines.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global health concern, estimated to have contributed to nearly 5 million deaths in 2019 and predicted to continue to cause millions of deaths and trillions of dollars of additional healthcare costs and lost GDP annually by 2050. The public health sector has identified access to safe water and sanitation at community level to be significant in tackling AMR through various pathways including reducing diseases, infections and use of antimicrobials as well as the spread of regular and resistant microbes and drug residue. Labiba is exploring concepts of integration of environmental protection and social justice within water and AMR governance to explore opportunities for better integration and governance of these issues. 

Alongside her research project, Labiba tutors on the undergraduate International Environmental Law module at SOAS. Before starting the PhD, Labiba completed a masters in Environmental Law and Sustainable Development at SOAS. Her dissertation looked at the complexities and injustices at the intersection of climate change induced (im)mobilities and international migration. Labiba has been involved with the International School of Climate Migration (ISCM) since 2022.

Outside of academia, Labiba is qualified as a Barrister and Solicitor in Ontario, Canada and as a Solicitor in England and Wales and has experience in Asylum, Immigration, Housing, Family and Civil Law practice. Labiba’s community engagements include mentoring, organising charity and community events, volunteering with migrant and civil rights organisations and a school governing board. Labiba lives in London with her husband and two young children.

• Environmental Justice, International Environmental Law
• Antimicrobial Resistance, antimicrobial use
• Pharmaceutical regulation
• Climate (im)mobility/displacement/migration
• Climate Justice
• Human Rights to Water and Sanitation,
• Water and other environmental pollution
• SDGs
• Planetary Health
• Health-Environment-Human Rights nexus