Zainab Lokhandwala

Zainab Lokhandwala is a lawyer and researcher currently pursuing her PhD at SOAS. Her PhD aims at improving farmers' control and autonomy over biogenetic resources;  and argues that this is the only way of ensuring sustainable use and conservation of these resources. She uses food sovereignty and peasants rights approaches to inspire stronger biogenetic resources rights for Indian farmers. Previously Zainab has worked as an advocate in Kolkata (India) in matters of environmental law, consumer protection, family law and banking. In Kolkata, she also worked at the Centre for Regulatory Studies, Governance and Public Policy (CRSGPP) at the National University of Juridical Science (NUJS), and later moved to New Delhi to work at the Centre for Comparative Law (CCL) at the National Law University Delhi. She has also taught environmental law at NUJS as a Teaching Assistant. Her publications and research have focused on environmental standards under international trade law, groundwater law and policy, forest laws and rights of indigenous peoples. Zainab graduated from ILS Law College, Pune (India) in 2014 and obtained her LLM degree in International & Comparative Law from WBNUJS in 2015.