Nuzhat Parveen Khan, Dean and Professor, Faculty of Law, Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) delivered a keynote address in the opening ceremony of the Seventh Academic International Conference on Interdisciplinary Legal Studies 2017, at Harvard University, Boston, USA.
The event held on November 20th, 2017 was organised to provide a forum for interdisciplinary legal studies and offer an intellectual space for critical research in the area.
In her keynote speech, Prof Khan referred to the major challenges before the international community, including, the global rise of nationalism; refugee and migration crises; reimagining of North-South relations; the development and use - legal or otherwise of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum; income and wealth inequality; and myriad environmental challenges. She added that these crises raise fundamental questions about the ability of law to efficiently cope with changing societal dynamics.
Nuzhat Khan said the law must adapt this dynamism and respond to technological, political, social, and environmental transformations.Disciplines outside the law can provide valuable tools and perspectives that law should engage with, in order to meet these challenges, she added.
Besides presenting a paper, ‘Recognition of Food Right in the Food Security Laws in India’, Nuzhat Khan also chaired a technical session at the conference. In her presentation, she said that India has accepted the concept of right to food through its constitution, its legislation and court decisions that give the broadest legal meaning to this indispensable human right, a practical shape.
Her proposal for faculty exchange programme between JMI and Harvard Law School, Harvard University was also received well by the host institution.