Ratna Kapur

Ratna Kapur is a Professor of International Law at Queen Mary University of London and holds a Global Chair in Law there. She is also Senior Core Faculty at the International Global Law and Policy Institute, Harvard Law School. Her research focuses on human rights, Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), and postcolonial feminist critiques. She examines marginalized groups such as sex workers, migrants, and religious minorities through a Global South lens, challenging liberal human rights paradigms.

Her work critiques the exclusionary nature of human rights frameworks and explores non-liberal emancipatory pathways. Key publications include Gender, Alterity and Human Rights: Freedom in a Fishbowl (2018), which reimagines freedom beyond liberal norms. She has engaged extensively with secularism’s role in Indian constitutional law and the rise of Hindu nationalism.

Kapur’s research spans comparative constitutional law, legal secularism, and queer theory. Her public engagements include keynote addresses at global institutions, lectures on postcolonial justice, and panel discussions on race, law, and human rights. She actively participates in debates on the politics of faith, gender equality, and the decolonization of international law.