Surya Deva

Mr Surya Deva took up the role of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development on 1 May 2023. Deva is a Professor at the Macquarie Law School and Director of the Centre for Environmental Law at Macquarie University, Australia. He conducts research in the areas of business and human rights, comparative constitutional law, international human rights law, sustainable development, climate change, and gender equality. Deva served as a member of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights (2016-22). He has advised UN agencies, governments, national human rights institutions, multinational corporations, trade unions and civil society organisations on issues related to business and human rights.

Deva has published extensively in the areas of his research expertise. He has presented over 100 papers at international conferences and delivered keynote address at several conferences. Deva was invited to speak at the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting (2016) and (2022), one of the most prestigious annual conferences in the field of international law.

Prior to joining Macquarie University in 2021, Deva was an Associate Professor at the School of Law of City University of Hong Kong. Previously he taught at the University of Delhi and the National Law Institute University Bhopal. He holds BA (Hons) Political Science, LLB and LLM from the University of Delhi and a PhD from the University of Sydney.

Deva is one of the founding Editors-in-Chief of the Business and Human Rights Journal, and sits on the Editorial/Advisory Board of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, the Vienna Journal on International Constitutional Law, the Indian Law Review, and the Australian Journal of Human Rights. He is an elected Vice President of the International Association of Constitutional Law (2022-26).