Tarun Khaitan
Tarun Khaitan is the Professor (Chair) of Public Law at the LSE Law School and an Honorary Professorial Fellow at Melbourne Law School. Previously, he has been the Head of Research at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights (Oxford), the Professor of Public Law and Legal Theory (Oxford), Vice Dean (Faculty of Law, Oxford), and a Visiting Professor of Law (Chicago, Harvard, and NYU law schools). His primary research interests include comparative constitutional law, legal theory, and discrimination law.
He completed his undergraduate studies (BA LLB Hons) at the National Law School (Bangalore) in 2004. He then came to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and completed his postgraduate studies at Exeter College. His research has been cited in over a dozen cases by influential courts, including the Indian Supreme Court, the Canadian Supreme Court, the European Court of Human Rights, the Israeli Supreme Court, the Madras High Court, the High Court of Kerala, and the Superior Court of Quebec. His work has also been cited in an opinion of Advocate General Medina before the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Publications
Books
Hum Bharat Ke Log: Bharatiya Samvidhaan par Nau Nibandh
'We the People of India: Nine Essays on the Indian Constitution’, co-authored with Surbhi Karwa, Vani Prakashan 2025, trade publication for a lay readership
The Entrenchment of Democracy: The Comparative Constitutional Law of Elections, Parties, and Voting
co-edited with Tom Ginsburg & Aziz Huq, CUP 2024 (forthcoming)
Constitutional Resilience in South Asia
co-edited with Swati Jhaveri & Dinesha Samararatne, Bloomsbury, 2023
A Theory of Discrimination Law
OUP 2015, Oxford Scholarship Online 2015, South Asia edition 2015, paperback 2016
Foundations of Indirect Discrimination Law
co-edited with Prof Hugh Collins, Bloomsbury, 2018
Journal Articles & Book Chapters
Peer-Reviewed Articles
- ‘Rewriting State of West Bengal v Anwar Ali Sarkar: The Possibility of an Anti-Colonial Jurisprudence’ (2023) 56 VRU|World Comparative Law 17-32
- ‘Areas of Law: Three Questions in Special Jurisprudence’ (co-authored with Prof Sandy Steel, 2023) 43 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 76-96
- ‘Theorizing Areas of Law: A Taxonomy of Special Jurisprudence’ (co-authored with Prof Sandy Steel, 2022) 28 Legal Theory 325-351
- ‘Guarantor Institutions’ (2021) 16(S1) Asian Journal of Comparative Law S40-S59
- Cited by the Pakistani Supreme Court in Sunni Ittehad Council v Election Commission of Pakistan (2024) to recognize its electoral commission as a guarantor institution
- ‘Political Parties in Constitutional Theory’ (2020) 73(1) Current Legal Problems 89-125
- Cited by the Pakistani Supreme Court in Sunni Ittehad Council v Election Commission of Pakistan (2024)
- ‘Killing a Constitution with a Thousand Cuts: Executive Aggrandizement and Party-State Fusion in India’ (2020) 14(1) Law & Ethics of Human Rights 49-95
- Basis of an interview with journalist Karan Thapar (over 200,000 views)
- Cited by MP Mahua Moitra in a debate on the Indian Constitution in the House of the People of India’s Parliament on 13 December 2024
- Quoted by The Economist, The Wire
- Focus of a blog symposium organized by Law and Other Things
- ‘Religion in Human Rights Law: A Normative Restatement’ (co-authored with Dr Jane Norton, 2020) 18(1) International Journal of Constitutional Law 111-129
- ‘The Right to Freedom of Religion and the Right against Religious Discrimination: Theoretical Distinctions’ (co-authored with Dr Jane Norton, 2019) 17(4) International Journal of Constitutional Law 1125-1145
- Received a Special Mention for the 2020 ICON Best Paper Prize
- ‘The Indian Supreme Court’s Identity Crisis: A Constitutional Court or a Court of Appeals?’ (2020) 4(1) Indian Law Review 1-30
- ‘Political Insurance for the (Relative) Poor: How Liberal Constitutionalism could Resist Plutocracy’ (2019) 8(3) Global Constitutionalism 536-570
- ‘Constitutional Directives: Morally-Committed Political Constitutionalism’ (2019) 82(4) Modern Law Review 603-632
- ‘Executive Aggrandizement in Established Democracies: A Crisis of Liberal Democratic Constitutionalism’ (2019) 17(1) International Journal of Constitutional Law 342–356
- Basis of an interview for the Philosophy 24/7 podcast
- ‘Directive Principles and the Expressive Accommodation of Ideological Dissenters’ (2018) 16(2) International Journal of Constitutional Law 389–420
- ‘Indirect Discrimination Law: Causation, Explanation and Coat-Tailers’(2016) 132 Law Quarterly Review 35–41
- Cited before the UK Supreme Court in Essop v. Home Office (2017)
- ‘Constitutional Avoidance in Social Rights Adjudication’ (co-authored with Dr Farrah Ahmed, 2015) 35(3) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 607–625
- ‘Koushal v Naz: Judges Vote to Recriminalise Homosexuality’ (2015) 78(4) Modern Law Review 672–680
- ‘“Constitution” as a Statutory Term’ (2013) 129 Law Quarterly Review 589–609
- ‘Dignity as an Expressive Norm-Neither Vacuous nor a Panacea’ (2012) 32 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 1–19
- ‘Reading Swaraj into Article 15—A New Deal for all Minorities’ (2009) 2 NUJS Law Review 419–432
- Cited by the Bombay High Court in Shahbaz Khan v Indian Oil Corporation (2025)
- Cited by the Indian Supreme Court in Navtej Johar v. Union of India (2018)
- ‘Beyond Reasonableness—A Rigorous Standard of Review for Article 15 Infringement’ (2008) 50(2) Journal of the Indian Law Institute 177–208
- Cited by the Indian Supreme Court in Dhariwal v Union of India 2021
Non-Peer-Reviewed Articles
- ‘On Scholactivism in Constitutional Studies: Sceptical Thoughts’ (2022) 20(2) International Journal of Constitutional Law 547
- Spurred a major international debate on the role of a scholar, through the pages of ICON and other journals
- Subject of a blog symposium and response on Verfassungblog
- ‘A Case for Moderated Parliamentarism’ (2021) 7 Canadian Journal of Comparative and Contemporary Law 81-155
- Focus of a blog symposium on the IACL-AIDC Blog
- Basis of interview on Rules of the Game podcast
- ‘Two Facets of Religion: Religious Adherence and Religious Group Membership’ (2021) 34 Harvard Human Rights Journal 231-247
- ‘The Supreme Court as a Constitutional Watchdog’ (2019) 721 Seminar 22-28
- ‘The Real Price of Parliamentary Obstruction’ (2013) 642 Seminar 37–41
- ‘Reforming the Pre-Legislative Process’ Economic and Political Weekly (18 June 2011) 27–30
- ‘Transcending Reservations—A Paradigm Shift in the Debate on Equality’ Economic and Political Weekly (20 September 2008) 8–12
- ‘Should Britain have a Written Constitution’ (with Prof Vernon Bogdanor & Prof Stefan Vogenauer, 2007) 78(4) The Political Quarterly 499–517
Book Chapters
- ‘Putting Power Back in the Separation of Powers’ in Cambridge Handbook on the Separation of Powers (David Kosar et al eds, forthcoming 2026)
- ‘Aversive Constitutionalism’ in Catherine O’Regan, Sujit Choudhry, and Carlos Bernal Pulido eds., Constitutional Interpretation (Elgar 2025) 220-240
- ‘Guarantor (or ‘Fourth Branch’) Institutions’ in Jeff King and Richard Bellamy eds, Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory (CUP 2025) 603-621
- ‘Introduction’ (co-authored with Tom Ginsburg & Aziz Huq) in The Entrenchment of Democracy: The Comparative Constitutional Design of Elections, Parties and Voting (co-edited with Tom Ginsburg & Aziz Huq, CUP 2024) 1-25
- ‘Political Parties in Constitutional Theory’ in The Entrenchment of Democracy: The Comparative Constitutional Design of Elections, Parties and Voting (co-edited with Tom Ginsburg & Aziz Huq, CUP 2024) 63-99
- ‘Constitutional Directives and the Duty to Govern Well’ in Vicki Jackson and Yasmin Dawood eds., Constitutionalism and the Right to Effective Government (CUP 2023) 193-205
- ‘The Point of Discrimination Law’ in Martha Nussbaum et al eds., The Empire of Disgust (OUP 2018) 348–368
- ‘Indirect Discrimination Law: Controversies and Critical Questions’ (co-authored with Prof Hugh Collins) in Hugh Collins and Tarunabh Khaitan eds., Foundations of Indirect Discrimination Law (Bloomsbury 2018) 1–30
- Cited by the Canadian Supreme Court in Fraser v Canada 2020 SCC 28
- Cited by the Indian Supreme Court in Nitisha v Union of India 2021
- Cited by the Superior Court of Quebec in Conseil des juifs hassidiques du Québec c. Procureur général du Québec (2021)
- Cited by the Ontario Grievance Settlement Board in Ontario Public Service Employees Union v Ontario (2021)
- Cited by the Madras High Court in Barvin v Ministry of Youth & Sports (2021)
- Cited by the Kerala High Court in Aishwarya Mohan v Union of India (2022)
- Cited by the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia in Joyce v Nova Scotia (2022)
- ‘Wrongs, Wrongfulness, and Blame in Indirect Discrimination Liability’ (co-authored with Dr Sandy Steel) in Hugh Collins and Tarunabh Khaitan eds., Foundations of Indirect Discrimination Law (Bloomsbury 2018) 197–128
- Cited by the Canadian Supreme Court in Fraser v Canada 2020 SCC 28
- ‘Discrimination’ in Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law (Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and Rule of Law 2017)
- ‘Indirect discrimination’ in Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen ed, Routledge Handbook of the Ethics of Discrimination (Routledge 2017) 30–41
- Cited by the Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union in KM v Instituto Nacional de la Seguridad Social (Case C‑625/20, 2022)
- ‘Equality: Legislative Review under Article 14’ in Sujit Choudhry et al eds, The Oxford Handbook of Indian Constitutional Law (OUP 2016) 699–719
- Cited by the Supreme Court of India in Tamil Nadu v National South Indian Rivers Interlinking Agriculturalist Association (2021)
- ‘The Architecture of Discrimination Law’ in Vidhu Verma ed, Unequal Worlds (OUP 2015) 119–163
- ‘Prelude to a Theory of Discrimination Law’ in Deborah Hellman & Sophia Moreau eds, Philosophical Foundations of Discrimination Law(OUP 2013) 138–162
Columns & Blog Posts
Frequent contributor to various newspapers and blogs, including the pre-eminent ‘UK Constitutional Law Association Blog’ and the widely read Indian blog ‘Law and Other Things’. One of these blog posts was cited by the Indian Supreme Court in Navtej Johar v. Union of India (2018).
Projects
The Anti-Discrimination and Equality Bill 2017 (as advised by Dr Tarunabh Khaitan) was introduced in 16th Lok Sabha on 10 March 2017, and lapsed with its dissolution. The Bill was an effort to respond, among several other events, to Rohith Vemula’s tragic suicide, which had put the need for an antidiscrimination legislation back on the political agenda.
In a five-part Republic Day special series ‘Hum Bharat Ke Log’, Tarunabh Khaitan, a professor of law at Oxford University explains the circumstances under which the preamble to the Indian Constitution was written.