Rate My Professor Surya Deva

Surya Deva is Professor at the Macquarie Law School, Macquarie University, and Director of the Environmental Law Research Centre as well as the B&HR Access to Justice Lab. An internationally recognised scholar in business and human rights, he holds a BA (Hons) in Political Science, an LLB, and an LLM from the University of Delhi, along with a PhD from the University of Sydney. His academic interests encompass business and human rights, international human rights law, comparative constitutional law, sustainable development, climate change, and gender equality.

Deva joined Macquarie University in 2021, following a 16-year tenure as Associate Professor at the School of Law, City University of Hong Kong, where he also served as Associate Director of the Public Law and Human Rights Forum. Earlier in his career, he was Assistant Professor at the National Law Institute University in Bhopal and Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi. In prominent international roles, he has been the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development since May 2023, Chair of the Coordination Committee of UN Special Procedures since December 2024, and a member of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights from 2016 to 2022. He is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Business and Human Rights Journal (since 2014) and serves on editorial boards of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Vienna Journal on International Constitutional Law, and Indian Law Review. Deva has advised United Nations agencies including UNICEF, UNDP, and ILO, as well as governments, national human rights institutions, multinational corporations, trade unions, and civil society organisations.

His scholarly output includes influential books such as Regulating Corporate Human Rights Violations: Humanizing Business (Routledge, 2012), Human Rights Obligations of Business: Beyond the Corporate Responsibility to Respect? (Cambridge University Press, 2013, co-edited), Building a Treaty on Business and Human Rights: Context and Contours (Cambridge University Press, 2017, co-edited), and Research Handbook on Human Rights and Business (Edward Elgar, 2020, co-edited). Recent contributions feature UN reports like "Nexus between gender equality and the right to development" (2025) and "Financing for inclusive, sustainable and participatory development" (2025). Deva has delivered over 100 papers at international conferences, including keynote addresses for the Council of Europe, National Human Rights Commission of Korea, and University of Oslo, and guest lectures at institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge, UCLA, and Sydney Law School. His work has been cited in international reports and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights advisory opinion on climate emergency and human rights.