LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Defending Social Rights during and beyond multiple global crises: Reflections on emerging challenges to the Right to Adequate Housing' - Prof Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Professor of Law and Development, MIT

Lecture summary: The talk will draw upon my recent report submitted to the UNHRC earlier this year. See: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/CFI_20years_SR_adequate_housing.aspx Balakrishnan Rajagopal is currently a Professor of Law and Development at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). A lawyer by training, he is an expert on many areas of human rights including economic, social and cultural rights, the UN system, and the human rights challenges posed by development activities. He is the founder of the Displacement Research and Action Network at MIT which leads research and engagement with communities, NGOs, and local and national authorities. He has conducted over 20 years of research on social movements and human rights advocacy around the world focusing in particular, on land and property rights, evictions and displacement. He has a law degree from University of Madras, India, a Masters degree in law from the American University as well as an interdisciplinary doctorate in law from Harvard Law School. Prof Rajagopal served as a human rights advisor to the World Commission on Dams and has advised numerous governments and UN agencies on human rights issues. He served for many years with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia during the 1990s when he was responsible for human rights monitoring, investigation, education and advocacy, as well as law drafting in a variety of areas. He has held visiting professorships and fellowships at many prestigious institutions around the world. He has delivered many distinguished lectures on invitation such as the Lecture on “International Courts and Second and Third Generation Human Rights” at the Brandeis Institute for International Judges, Brandeis University, the Keynote on ‘Rethinking the Right to Development: Challenges and Opportunities’ at the 3nd Inter-American Conference on Human Rights, Bogota, Colombia, the Keynote on ‘Right to housing: Comparative perspectives’, Human Rights Law Resource Center, Melbourne, Australia, Special Lectures at the UN University for Peace, Costa Rica, the Rechtskulturen Lecture at the Institute for Advanced Study, Germany, the Valerie Gordon Human Rights Lecture, Northeastern University School of Law, the Annual Hansen/Hostler Distinguished Lecture on Global Justice, San Diego State University, the Annual New Frontiers Lecture at the Nigerian Institute for Advanced Legal Studies and Keynotes at various conferences including the joint annual conference of the Australian and New Zealand Societies of International Law. Prof Rajagopal has published numerous scholarly articles, and book chapters and is the author/editor of four books. He has also led or contributed to field and research reports on evictions, displacement and housing and related human rights and development policy issues. He has also published widely in the media on human rights and international law and issues concerning the South including in such publications as the Boston Globe, the Hindu, the Wire, Washington Post, the Indian Express, El Universal, and the Nation, and the huffingtonpost.com.