Executive Director

Sanjay Kabir Bavikatte is a lawyer who completed his law degree at the National Law School, India. He acquired his masters in law at the University of Warwick, UK and earned his doctorate from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Sanjay has practiced as an environmental lawyer for well over a decade focusing on the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to their territories and cultures. He was the co-founder of Natural Justice, an international organization of environmental law practitioners providing legal assistance to stewards of biocultural diversity and advising governments in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Pacific.

He has acted as the legal advisor to the African Group of countries through their negotiations towards the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing and within the Working Group on Article 8j of the Convention on Biological Diversity. He has also advised the various governments in Africa, Asia and the Pacific on developing environmental law and policy with a focus on community rights. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the United Nations University, Japan where his research dealt with healing intergenerational trauma amongst some Indigenous Peoples through the selective revival of specific myths and Nature-based rites of passage.

Sanjay has served on several boards and steering committees and has published extensively on biocultural rights. His recent book ‘Stewarding the Earth: Rethinking Property and the Emergence of Biocultural Rights,’ was published by Oxford University Press and has been widely commended.