Sangeetha is the Director of the Institute for Law and Policy on Climate Mobility at the University of Oxford.  Sangeetha also holds the appointments of non-resident Senior Scholar at the University of Oxford and Yale University on climate-related migration. Through these appointments she is examining how law and policy can more effectively respond to one of the defining challenges of our time.

Sangeetha is uniquely placed to have experienced some of the humanitarian crises that people are fleeing from first-hand, to have viewed the changing position of governments through the eyes of the European courts and to have worked directly in reception countries on the first shores of Europe.  She brings this experience and expertise to focus in responding to climate mobility.

The field of ‘climate migration’ is casually discussed and over-sensationalised in public discourse.  Much of the media coverage presents climate migrants as either ‘victims’ with little agency who need protection, or as security threats.  Yet when one applies the sharp edge of the law, the law does not yet provide an answer to the simple questions of ‘who is a climate migrant’ and ‘what is climate migration.’  International and national legal frameworks do not yet define this broad, and growing theme of movement.

Sangeetha is currently working on building definitive legal parameters for climate mobility.  Through the Institute for Law and Policy on Climate Mobility, she is co-leading a project for Quadrature Foundation that is developing actionable rights-based policy briefs for Government ministries to effectively respond to climate effects.  These policy briefs will start to shape rights in this nascent field of law.

Sangeetha is a recognised thought leader on migration, climate and international human rights issues, having held long-standing academic appointments that explore these intersections.  Her second TEDx talk will debunk myths about climate mobility.

Sangeetha is always interested to collaborate on this multi-disciplinary issue.