Avani Agarwal
Matric Year: 2021 – Subject: BCL – Scholarship: HSA Advocates Scholar
I completed the B.A.LL.B. (Hons) Course at NALSAR University of Law in 2021, and have remained at the top of my class for five years. During the BCL, I hope to study private international law with an emphasis on dispute resolution. I am particularly excited to be able to explore the intersection of this field with public policy.
I have been interested in dispute resolution mechanisms ever since I was introduced to them in my first year of law school. While pursuing this interest through various avenues, I witnessed the influence of gender and race on seemingly neutral standards. This has motivated me to analyse private law structures through an interdisciplinary and critical lens.
I have attempted to evaluate the relationship between dispute resolution and policy through various publications. Recently, I co-authored a book chapter analysing the impact of investment arbitration costs on the pursuit of justice. Due to my manifest inclination towards this subject, I was nominated by the Telangana government to attend a conference in the Hague where I worked with policy students on developing fair responses to cyber-conflicts. Currently, I am serving as the executive-secretary for an international task-force that seeks to expand arbitration norms to meet the representative and decentralised conception of justice held by the global technology sector. These experiences have solidified my interest in building a career in dispute resolution, and contributing to both academic literature and ongoing efforts seeking to make the field more equitable.
The BCL will empower me to pursue this interest to the fullest extent by allowing me to create a unique curriculum out of various specialised course options. I feel privileged to be able to spend this year at Somerville College, and hope to learn from its inspiring history of advocating for equality. I would like to express my gratitude to HSA Advocates and the OICSD for selecting me to be this year’s HSA Advocates Scholar and thereby enabling me to strive towards my objectives.