The University of Birmingham is joining forces with Yale and Delhi to support the development of a pioneering global justice programme in India.

The Nyaya Global Justice Programme at the University of Delhi will be a major intellectual hub for the study of international ethical questions which have strong implications for India and neighbouring countries. These include questions around India’s role in the World Trade Organization, G20 and United Nations Security Council, fairness in international trade, cooperation in poverty reduction efforts, and ethics in global security issues.

Nyaya, meaning ‘justice’ in Hindi, will also serve as the centre for a trilateral doctoral student exchange programme connecting the University of Delhi, the University of Birmingham’s Centre for the Study of Global Ethics and Yale’s Global Justice Program. 

Dr Luis Cabrera, Reader in Political Theory at the University of Birmingham’s Department of Political Science, said: “It’s very exciting to be taking this initiative forward with colleagues at Delhi and Yale. Nyaya will be the first major global justice programme in India and it will add an important focus on the Global South, as well as voices from South countries, to the dialogue on ethical issues that cross borders.” 

Director of the Nyaya programme Dr Ashok Acharya from the University of Delhi, said: “Setting up a global justice programme in India, and especially at the University of Delhi, has been a dream project that I have been nurturing for the past 10 years or so. I’m sure, once established, this will grow from strength to strength and bring together the best of the minds from across the world and apply them to resolve key global inequities.”

Dr Cabrera added: “The programme will fill important gaps in the training of PhD and post-doctoral researchers at each of the partner universities, and it will afford them opportunities to work with some of the world’s leading analysts of poverty and social issues.”

The progamme’s development is funded through the British Council’s Trilateral Research in Partnership (TRIP) Awards, the first strand of the successful UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) to partner with the United States. The two-year grant will also fund two major conferences; one in Delhi, entitled Global Justice and the Global South, and a graduate conference in Birmingham, as well as a global justice lecture series that will bring UK and US researchers to Delhi.

For media enquiries, please contact: Catherine Byerley, International Media Relations Manager, University of Birmingham, Tel: +44 (0)121 414 8254 or Email: c.j.byerley@bham.ac.uk