Associate Professor Gautam Bhatia
BA LLB (Hons), National Law School of India University, Bangalore.
BCL (Oxford).
LLM (Yale).
MPhil (Law) (Oxford).
DPhil (Law) (Oxford).
I am a Green Fellow at the Faculty of Law and Justice. I read for the BA LLB (Hons.) at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, the BCL, MPhil, and DPhil (Law) at the University of Oxford, and the LLM (Law) at Yale Law School. Before coming to UNSW, I spent a decade at the intersection of constitutional law practice at the Supreme Court of India, and comparative constitutional law teaching and scholarship. One of the notable cases that I argued involved a successful constitutional challenge to a government-established "Fact Check Unit" for online expression before the High Court of Bombay. I've written a number of books on the Indian Constitution, the Kenyan Constitution, and on comparative constitutional law, and am the co-editor of the Cambridge Handbook on the Constitution of India (forthcoming). My work has been cited by the Supreme Court of India, by numerous Indian High Courts, and I have served as amicus curae before the Supreme Court of Kenya (twice), and the courts of Japan.
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
Green Fellowship, 2026-2028.
Rhodes Scholarship.
Clarendon Scholarship.
Modern Law Review Scholarship.
New India Fellowship.
Ran Hirschl Award for best article in Constitutional Studies (2026).
At UNSW, I am working on a book project that examines concepts in global and comparative constitutional law from the lens of the critique of political economy. I apply frameworks from the LPE movement, the material constitution, and Marxist-Pashukanist approaches to interrogate both the potential and the limits of comparative constitutional law doctrine (focusing on socio-economic rights, proportionality, and so on).
In addition, I am co-editing three projects: the Cambridge Handbook of the Indian Constitution (forthcoming late 2026/early 2027), an academic festschrift for Professor Sandy Fredman titled Futureproofing Human Rights (forthcoming mid-2027), and the second edition of the Elgar Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law, with UNSW professor Ros Dixon (forthcoming 2028).
I frequently write op-eds on legal and constitutional issues for The Hindustan Times and The Hindu.
I have been running an open-access comparative constitutional law blog for the last thirteen years, which is widely read and has been cited by courts.