Kavita Naidu

Kavita is an international human rights lawyer who works in feminist climate justice advocacy and movement building. She has diverse experience working with grassroots women and girls across Asia and the Pacific. Her core role involves building the capacity of grassroots women in this region to challenge neoliberalism, patriarchy, fundamentalism and militarism and ensure that the voices of the most marginalized and oppressed women are amplified in regional and international advocacy spaces to influence laws, policies and development. Kavita has authored a number of articles and blogs on the intersectionality of gender, human rights, economic justice, racial inequality, the Global Green New Deal, COVID-19 and the climate crisis. Kavita is regularly invited to speak or moderate at UN panels and events including at policy institutions and universities in the US, Europe and Australia.

Currently, Kavita is a consultant working on feminist participatory action research in climate justice with Edith Cowan University and in partnership with Plan International Australia in Fiji and Kiribati and with Oxfam Asia in the Mekong region. Kavita is a co-focal coordination support for the UNFCCC Women & Gender Constituency.

Kavita is a Board member of Greenpeace Australia Pacific and a Council Member of Progressive International. Kavita is also a member of the Climate Advisory Taskforce and the Strategic Litigation Team at ESCR-Net.

Kavita specializes in international climate change law, international human rights law, international refugee law, criminal law and litigation. She is admitted as a solicitor in New Zealand (2005), Fiji (2006) and Australia (2007). She holds a Master of Laws specializing in International Law and Human Rights from the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Publications
Naomi Joy Godden, Pam Macnish, Trimita Chakma & Kavita Naidu, (2020), Feminist Participatory Action Research as a tool for climate justice, Gender & Development, 28:3, 593–615, DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2020.1842040