Dear All,

The department of Environmental Studies cordially invites you to a colloquium on 

Title: The Fossil Dilemma: Law, Sovereignty and Forest Rights in a Warming World

Speaker: ARPITHA KODIVERI, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Vassar College, New York

Date: 22 April 2026

Time: 6:30 – 7:30 PM 

Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/97608050293?pwd=NlqdqRyivmbuYqyk1u7X1yDBNiO9qk.1 

Abstract: In the coal rich forests in India the law configures conflict and contestations over land through a particular definition, understanding and interpretation of sovereignty, rights and property. In this talk I will explore how the multiple expressions of sovereignty and rights in land conflicts emerging from the state, forest-dwelling communities and the non-human world inhabit the law and are made and unmade through specific legal interpretations by the bureaucracy and invention of new legal categories in coal bearing areas. Through an analysis of jurisprudence, legislation and interviews with forest-dwelling communities and lawyers embedded in these conflicts the talk focuses on how the law is mobilized and interpreted by these actors and the strategies that underlie them. The talk will conclude by seeing how newer climate legal frameworks on the regulation of fossil fuels particularly those in the recent advisory opinion by the international court of justice may shape the law and decision-making in these localized forest rights struggles.

Speaker's Bio: Arpitha Kodiveri is an international and comparative environmental law scholar and assistant professor of political science at Vassar College. Her work focuses on the role of environmental law in the context of forest governance in South Asia. Her previous research examines land conflicts and legal mobilization by forest-dwelling communities in India. She has worked as an environmental lawyer supporting Adivasi and forest-dwelling communities in India. She is the recipient of the Hans Kelsen Fellowship at the EUI and the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship.

We encourage insterested students and faculty members to join the talk.

Warm regards,

Environmental Studies Department