Around the world, the law is increasingly being weaponised to silence independent reporting and to compromise journalists’ freedom, wellbeing, and financial security. As ‘lawfare’ escalates in i...
Karuna Nundy
Karuna Nundy is a designated Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India and an international lawyer. She also works with governments to contribute to constitutional and legal drafting and policy. She has been listed by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022-2023. She has been described by the BBC as a "leading lawyer", by the New York Times as a 'leading civil liberties lawyer' in an article on free expression, and received an award for being one of the "Most Powerful Women in Business" in 2021 for her commercial dispute resolution work.
Currently, Nundy serves as an expert on the Columbia Global Freedom of Expression committee and a member of the High-Level Panel on Media Freedom chaired by Lord Justice David Neuberger and founded by Amal Clooney at the request of the governments of the UK and Canada. She has appeared in some of the most significant cases in India and was one of the lawyers who led arguments in the definitive online free speech case. She is leading arguments to criminalise marital rape and separately has submitted a review to legalise queer marriage in part on grounds of freedom to express sexual preference.
Nundy has trained judges globally at a MOOC of the Bonavero Institute at Oxford University on international standards required of judges when dealing with 'blasphemy' and religious hate speech - especially when journalists are implicated. Her legal work includes fighting for the rights of the Bhopal gas victims, contributing to the 2013 'Anti Rape Laws' and the Right to Food Act.
She has worked with the governments of Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan on constitutional, legal and human rights reforms. She was invited by the United Nations to advise on legal reform in 192 jurisdictions.
Nundy obtained a degree in Economics from St. Stephen's college, Delhi University. Her first law degree is from the University of Cambridge, England, where she was awarded the Emmeline Pankhurst prize, the Amy Cohen Awards and the Becker Studentship. She then received an LL.M from Columbia University, New York where she was awarded a Human Rights Fellowship. She is qualified to practise law in India and New York.
member High Level Panel of Experts Media Freedom Coalition
