Papers by Birsha Ohdedar
Transnational Environmental Law, 2024
Floods are not merely 'natural' disasters; rather, they emerge as socio-natural phenomena shaped ... more Floods are not merely 'natural' disasters; rather, they emerge as socio-natural phenomena shaped by political, social, and economic processes. Law plays a pivotal role in producing and sustaining these processes and contributes to the creation of unjust environments. Drawing on political ecology and environmental history, this article analyzes the role of law and its interactions with colonialism and capitalism in the Damodar river valley in Eastern India. The Damodar river valley is an intensely engineered and hazardous region, a site of multiple interventions and developmental and ecological experiments for over a century. Colonial and post-colonial legacies have left a lasting imprint on legal, policy, and institutional frameworks, establishing a path-dependent trajectory for addressing future climate change adaptation challenges. While focusing on a specific case study, the article's approach and findings have broader significance, especially in the context of climate adaptation. The central argument underscores the need to understand the political and legal dimensions of flooding, and reinforces the need for a shift beyond incremental adjustments that do not tackle the underlying structures that produce the injustices associated with floods. It highlights the importance of 'transformative adaptation' approaches that address the root causes of climate-related disasters, such as restructuring power relations between actors, reconfiguring governance structures, and scrutinizing ideologies that mediate how water is used and distributed.
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Journal of Human Rights & Environment , 2022
This article examines the nexus between climate vulnerability, rights and litigation with a focus... more This article examines the nexus between climate vulnerability, rights and litigation with a focus on the Global South. Reducing vulnerability is inherent to climate adaptation and the protection and realisation of human rights. However, despite these linkages, vulnerability has been given scant attention in climate law literature. Through a more detailed understanding of vulnerability, we can identify a wider variety of cases that are relevant to why people are climate vulnerable and the potential for strategic interventions. Accordingly, using an interdisciplinary framework drawing upon political ecology, the article outlines two broad approaches to vulnerability. The hazards approach, based upon protecting people from the physical impacts of climate change; and the social vulnerability approach, which foregrounds the socio-political factors that underpin why particular groups of people are more vulnerable than others. India is then used as a case study to illustrate three types of litigation relevant from a vulnerability perspective: litigation on droughts, land conflicts and agrarian debt. These cases, though not traditionally defined as 'climate litigation', are fundamentally issues of climate vulnerability, adaptation and rights. The cases demonstrate how different framings of climate vulnerability are embedded within the arguments and directions of the courts. Ultimately, the article argues that through a closer understanding of climate vulnerability, litigation can be a vehicle for adaptation by identifying and tackling the structural causes of vulnerability and rights issues.
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Climate Change Litigation: Global Perspectives, 2021
This chapter forms part of an edited collection on global perspectives on climate litigation. Aft... more This chapter forms part of an edited collection on global perspectives on climate litigation. After the case of Asghar Leghari v Pakistan, a global spotlight has been placed on Pakistan, as well as the region more generally, for the potential of climate litigation. The chapter analyses climate litigation in India and Pakistan and the opportunities and challenges that exist going forward. It traces the limited case law that has developed to date expressly incorporating climate considerations. The chapter analyses the development of litigation with reference to broader socio-political dimensions of litigation, environment and climate change in the region. Furthermore, a broader sphere of ‘litigation in the context of climate change’ is analysed, broadening the scope of litigation beyond what is traditionally seen as ‘climate litigation’ . This includes litigation that brings forward issues that deal with mitigation and adaptation but do not necessarily expressly frame arguments in terms of ‘climate change’. Accordingly, the chapter provides a fresh perspective to the current literature on climate litigation in India and Pakistan, through a more focussed analysis of climate litigation in the domestic political and legal context within which such litigation takes place.
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Climate Change Litigation: A Handbook , 2021
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The Commons in a Glocal World: Global Connections and Local Responses , 2019
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Third Pole, 25 July 2017.
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Water International , 2017
In 2014, British Columbia enacted the Water Sustainability Act, a comprehensive overhaul of its g... more In 2014, British Columbia enacted the Water Sustainability Act, a comprehensive overhaul of its ground and surface water regimes. Meanwhile, in England more piecemeal changes have been made to existing groundwater laws and policies. Through developing a framework from groundwater governance and climate change adaptation literature this paper analyses the effectiveness of these reforms, which have been carried out through different methods and from different starting points. The paper goes on to considers how new processes and technologies, such as hydraulic fracturing (fracking), bring fresh challenges in aligning progress in groundwater law reforms with the wider policy framework.
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Nordic Journal of International Law, 2016
Loss and damage from the impacts of climate change affect many countries and communities across t... more Loss and damage from the impacts of climate change affect many countries and communities across the world. In 2013, the Warsaw Mechanism on Loss and Damage, created through the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, established an institutional process to respond to such impacts. This paper aims to contribute to the growing literature on climate liability by outlining a normative framework based on international law that can be used as a guiding path for the mechanism. It is argued that addressing loss and damage in line with these core principles and international law is required to develop a robust and legitimate mechanism. This framework is then used to answer critical questions regarding an international loss and damage mechanism for climate change.
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Research Notes by Birsha Ohdedar
www.orinam.net, 2011
A Brief Note drafted in 2011 by the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore for the website orinam.net o... more A Brief Note drafted in 2011 by the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore for the website orinam.net on Same Sex Marriage and the Law in India
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Papers by Birsha Ohdedar
Research Notes by Birsha Ohdedar