Biography
Kanika completed her doctoral research at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore in 2026. Her thesis examines community-based water governance in rural India. It analyses how local communities in water scarce villages develop and sustain their own legal systems to govern their commons. Informed by an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, the project sits at the intersection of law, sociology, and governance. At NUS, Kanika was supported by the Graduate Research Scholarship.
A socio-legal researcher, Kanika’s research interests centre on environmental and climate governance, the rights of nature, and legal pluralism. Prior to commencing her doctoral research, she served as an Assistant Professor at Jindal Global Law School in India, where she delivered courses on environmental law, climate change law, and public international law. Kanika’s scholarship on domestic and international environmental law has been published in the Environmental Law Review, Environmental Policy and Law, and the Indian Law Review. She also writes for print media on contemporary issues in environmental and climate law and governance. During her tenure at JGLS, she received the Research Excellence Award in recognition of her scholarship. Previously, she served as an Assistant Editor for the Indian Law Review.
As a Max Weber Fellow, Kanika will work towards developing her doctoral project into a monograph. Simultaneously, she will continue building her on-going research on community-based governance of natural resources, the rights of nature, and just transition.