Vandita Khanna
Vandita Khanna completed her undergraduate legal studies at Jindal Global Law School, India (2013-18) as the overall gold medallist. She received the Oxford Indira Gandhi Graduate Scholarship and Cornelia Sorabji Scholarship from the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development to read, respectively, for the BCL (with Distinction) and MPhil in Law at the University of Oxford. During a PhD in Law at the University of Cambridge (supervised by Dr Kirsty Hughes), she studied the role of equality and discrimination law in responding to the phenomenon of racialised poverty, with a focus on Article 14 ECHR. Her PhD was funded by the Cambridge International and Evan Lewis-Thomas Law Studentship. As part of her PhD, she was a visiting PhD fellow at the Hertie School, Centre for Fundamental Rights, in fall 2023 and a Fox International Fellow at Yale University in the academic year 2024-25.
Vandita joined the Academy for European Human Rights Protection at the University of Cologne as a Postdoctoral Researcher in July 2025.
Research Areas
- International and European human rights law
- Equality and discrimination law
- Economic and social rights
Publications
Articles
- Vandita Khanna, ‘Seriously ill migrants in European human rights: Framing global inequalities’ (2025) The International Journal of Human Rights, https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2025.2501571 (link)
- Vandita Khanna, ‘Roma vulnerability before the European Court of Human Rights: Towards a structural account’ (2024) 42(4) Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 340–362 (link)
- Vandita Khanna, ‘The development of indirect discrimination law in India: Slow, uncertain, and unsteady’ (2024) 8(3) Indian Law Review 306–330 (link)
Blogpost
- Vandita Khanna, ‘Equality as Integral: Reframing Article 14 ECHR’ (Völkerrechtsblog, 8 November 2023).
- Vandita Khanna, ‘Breaking New (Capacious) Ground: India’s Tryst with Anti-Discrimination Law’ (IACL-AIDC Blog, 22 September 2020).
- Vandita Khanna and Natasa Mavronicola, ‘Living with HIV/AIDS in Prison: Segregation and Othering Endorsed by the ECtHR in Dikaiou v Greece’ (Strasbourg Observers, 21 September 2020).
- Alexandra Lily Kather, Silvia Rojas-Castro and Vandita Khanna, ‘The Time is Urgent while the Discrimination Continues: CEDAW as the Last Avenue of Justice for the Malaya Lolas?’ (Opinio Juris, 26 November 2019).
Book Chapters
- Vandita Khanna, ‘A fractured approach: Poverty and racial discrimination before the CERD Committee’ in Elif Askin and Hanna Stoll (eds), Contested Equality: International and Comparative Legal Perspectives (Edward Elgar, 2024) 28–47 (link).
Book Reviews
- Vandita Khanna, ‘Virginia Mantouvalou, Structural Injustice and Workers’ Rights’ [2023] Cambridge Law Journal 574–577 (link).
- Vandita Khanna, ‘Natasa Mavronicola, Torture, Inhumanity and Degradation under Article 3 of the ECHR: Absolute Rights and Absolute Wrongs’ [2022] European Human Rights Law Review 216–218.
Case Comments
- Vandita Khanna, ‘Racial profiling as indirect discrimination: Memedova and others v. North Macedonia’ [2024] European Human Rights Law Review 181–185.
- Vandita Khanna, ‘India—Dress codes, religious headscarves, and indirect discrimination: A missed opportunity in Indian constitutional law’ [2022] Public Law 671–674.
- Vandita Khanna, ‘Indirect discrimination and substantive equality in Nitisha: Easier said than done under Indian constitutional jurisprudence’ (2022) 22(1) International Journal of Discrimination and the Law 74–86 (link)
Contact
Contact
Kerpener Str. 30
50937 Köln
Telephone +49 221 470 76021
E-mail vandita.khanna(at)uni-koeln.de
Website