"Can Courts Save the Environment Without Weakening Democracy? Rethinking Environmental Judicial Activism in South Asia"

Lecture synopsis: 

Environmental constitutionalism has empowered courts to respond where political institutions appear unwilling or unable to act. In India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, however, this expansion of judicial authority raises a neglected question: can environmentally progressive judgments nevertheless be democratically deficient? Drawing on his forthcoming book, Dr Chowdhury examines a pattern of environmental adjudication that is normatively ambitious but frequently less inclusive, less democratic and more combative than its objectives require. In his lecture he argues that the central challenge is not choosing between judicial activism and restraint, but reimagining the relationship between courts, legislatures, governments and affected communities. Bringing South Asian jurisprudence into conversation with deliberative democracy and dialogic judicial review, the lecture develops a model of collaborative environmental adjudication. Under this model, courts do not abandon rights enforcement; rather, they employ participatory and dialogue-promoting remedies that distribute responsibility, improve public justification and make environmental reform more democratically legitimate and institutionally sustainable.

Speaker: 

Dr M. Jashim Ali Chowdhury is the Baxandall Visiting Fellow at Robinson College (Michaelmas Term 2026) and a Lecturer in Law at the University of Hull. He has more than nineteen years of teaching and research experience across the United Kingdom and Bangladesh, specialising in comparative public law, constitutionalism, parliamentary studies, human rights and environmental law.

Dr Chowdhury completed his PhD in Law at King’s College London as a Commonwealth Scholar, following an LL.M. in International and Comparative Law at Tulane University as a Fulbright Scholar. He previously earned his LL.B. and LL.M. from the University of Chittagong, graduating with first-class distinction and placing first in both degrees.

He is the author of five books and numerous peer-reviewed publications with leading academic publishers. His recent monograph, Fifty Years of Bangladesh Parliament: A Critical Evaluation (2025), examines parliamentary institutions and democratic governance. At Robinson College, he is completing his forthcoming Springer Nature monograph, Judges in Environmental Management, which explores how courts and political institutions can collaborate in addressing environmental challenges while preserving democratic legitimacy, drawing on comparative perspectives from the Global South and Global North.

The Baxandall Lecture is made possible by a generous gift from Dr Leigh Baxandall (Natural Sciences - Physical, 1979).

Please note: This event will be filmed.

Photo credit: Spotyphoto (Header); Dr Terri Ochiagha (Event image).