Shazia Choudhry
Professor of Law, Hackney Fellow in Law and Tutor for Race
Biography
Nominated in 2024 by the UK Government as its candidate for election to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Shazia is Professor of Law in the Faculty of Law and Tutorial Fellow in Law at Wadham College, University of Oxford. She is also an Academic Bencher at the Inner Temple and a qualified Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales. In 2026, she was appointed as a Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (from 1 January 2026).
Her research focuses on gender, human rights, and violence against women, examining these topics through interdisciplinary perspectives and employing doctrinal, theoretical, and empirical methods. Her scholarship sits at the intersection of criminal law, human rights law, and family law, with a strong comparative and international orientation. Her research has spanned Europe, India, Latin America, Japan, and Ghana, including projects on access to justice for women, gender-based violence, child contact and domestic abuse.
Her expertise is reflected in extensive advisory work and appointments, including service as Specialist Legal Adviser to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into Violence against Women (2014–15), the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill (2019), the Women and Equalities Committee (2024), and the House of Lords Domestic Abuse Act 2021 Committee (2026). She has been commissioned to provide research for the UK Ministry of Justice, the GREVIO Secretariat, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls. She regularly advises national bodies on gender equality, violence against women and girls, the impact of violence in family law proceedings, and access to justice. She has also served as an expert evaluator for the European Commission, an expert consultant for the Council of Europe (including participation in the GREVIO monitoring mission to Serbia), and as an expert consultant for UNFPA and the United Nations.
Reports
Professor Choudhry was Principal Investigator on The Family Justice Response to Domestic Abuse – The Report, launched in October 2024. Funded by the Oak Foundation, this three‑year project examined how family justice systems respond to allegations of domestic abuse across England and Wales, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Italy, and Spain. The qualitative research drew on interviews with judges, lawyers, court‑appointed experts, and focus groups with survivors in all six jurisdictions, highlighting systemic challenges and survivor experiences. Faculty of Law, Oxford The British Academy Faculty of Law,
She was also Joint Principal Investigator on Surviving Violence: Everyday Resilience and Gender Justice in Rural‑Urban India (2022–23), a British Academy‑funded collaboration with Indian partners. This multidisciplinary study investigated how women in rural and urban contexts navigate domestic violence through informal networks, resilience strategies, and non‑legal avenues, bridging gaps between law, policy, and lived realities while informing evidence‑based approaches to gender justice. Oxford survivingviolence.org
Edited books
Choudhry S and Herring J (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Comparative Family Law (Cambridge University Press 2019)
Articles
Choudhry S, ‘Patriarchal Forestalling—the Anticipatory Structure of Legal Failure on Violence against Women’ [forthcoming - 2026] Oxford Journal of Legal Studies
Choudhry S, ‘Mother-Blame by Design: Patriarchy, Epistemic Practices, and Parental Alienation in Family Courts’ [forthcoming - 2026] Current Legal Problems
Birchall J and Choudhry S, ‘‘I was punished for telling the truth’: how allegations of parental alienation are used to silence, sideline and disempower survivors of domestic abuse in family law proceedings’ (2022) 6(1) Journal of Gender-Based Violence 115
Choudhry S, ‘When Women’s Rights are Not Human Rights – the Non‐ Performativity of the Human Rights of Victims of Domestic Abuse within English Family Law’ (2019) 82(6) Modern Law Review 1072
Hunter R and Choudhry S, ‘Conclusion: international best practices’ (2018) 40(4) Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 548
Herring J and Choudhry S, ‘A Human Right to Legal Aid? – The Implications of Changes to the Legal Aid Scheme for Victims of Domestic Abuse’ [2017] Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law
Choudhry S, ‘Towards a Transformative Conceptualisation of Violence Against Women ‐ A Critical Frame Analysis of Council of Europe Discourse on Violence Against Women’ (2016) 79(3) Modern Law Review 406
Choudhry S, ‘Best interests in the MCA 2005--what can healthcare law learn from family law?’ (2008) 16(3) Health Care Analysis : HCA : Journal of Health Philosophy and Policy 240
Herring J and Choudhry S, ‘Righting Domestic Violence’ (2006) 20(1) International Journal of Law Policy and the Family 95