Surabhi Chopra is the Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London.

She is a human rights scholar researching hate crimes, human rights remedies, and the regulation of migration across multiple Asian states.

She has a law degree from Cambridge University (First Class), an MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics (Distinction) and a BA in Anthropology from Harvard University (Magna cum Laude).  

Research Interests 

Surabhi led the first study of administrative detention of migrants in Hong Kong (Immigration Detention and Vulnerable Migrants in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Research Grants Council Impact Fund, 2020-2023). Project findings led to a first-of-its-kind data repository on detention in Hong Kong, as well as a range of digital and print resources on immigration detention for migrants and CSOs. 

She co-anchored a multidisciplinary project on forced migration with nine researchers across five continents (funded by the Worldwide Universities Network, 2020-21) and is currently pursuing research on hate crimes against minorities in India.  

Her scholarship on legal proceedings related to hate crimes and police violence in India has contributed to international advocacy by CSOs at the United Nations and helped to establish a documentation centre on violence against minorities at a Delhi-based CSO. 

She has been invited by the Constitutional Court of South Korea, and the Commission of Human Rights of the Philippines among others to advise on redress for hate crimes and other human rights violations.Her work has been published in leading law journals, including, inter alia, Law & Social Inquiry, Global Constitutionalism, and Federal Law Review.

Surabhi is a member of the Bar Council of India and Lincoln’s Inn, UK

Teaching Interests 

As Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Surabhi taught criminal, constitutional, and human rights law, and made significant administrative contributions, serving on, inter alia, CUHK’s Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee, the executive committee of the CUHK Gender Research Centre and Gender Studies Programme, and the Law Panel on the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2020 conducted by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council.

Selected Publications 

Surabhi Chopra & Eva Pils, ‘The Hong Kong National Security Law and the Struggle over Rule of Law and Democracy in Hong Kong’ (2022) 50(3) Federal Law Review 292–313.  

Surabhi Chopra, ‘Asserting Citizenship, Claiming Space: Activism and Repression in Majoritarian India’ in Amy Barrow & Sara Fuller eds. Activism and Authoritarian Governance in Asia (Routledge 2022).

Surabhi Chopra, ‘The Constitution of the Philippines and Transformative Constitutionalism’ (2022) 10(2) Global Constitutionalism 307-330. 

Surabhi Chopra, ‘Judging the Troops: Exceptional Security Measures and Judicial Impact in India’ (2019) 44(3) Law and Social Inquiry 555-585.

Surabhi Chopra, ‘Massacres, Majorities and Money: Reparation after Sectarian Violence in India’ (2017) 4(1) Asian Journal of Law and Society 157-190. 

Digital Research Outputs

 Immigration Detention in Hong Kong [website and data repository created under the project Immigration Detention and Vulnerable Migrants in Hong Kong (Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2023)]. https://immigrationdetentionhk.net/en/

“Could it happen to me?: Immigration detention in Hong Kong” [animated video created in collaboration with Lou Pau Studios and Anna Katalin Lovrity] (Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2023). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwMCyZ14r2c&t=5s&ab_channel=ImmigrationDetentioninHongKong

Selected Media Articles

Surabhi Chopra & Gigi Lo, 將移民變成囚犯, InMedia Hong Kong, August 13, 2023. 

Surabhi Chopra, Hong Kong should rethink rules that threaten to make immigration detention feel like jail, South China Morning Post, December 20, 2022. 

Surabhi Chopra & Chloe Fung, Bio-tracked, Mistreated, Hog-tied: Immigration Detention in East Asia in 2021, The Diplomat, December 30, 2021. 

Surabhi Chopra & Raquel Amador, Hostile Harbor: Proposed Legal Reform Bodes Ill for Vulnerable Migrants in Hong Kong, The Diplomat, February 18, 2021. 

Surabhi Chopra, Yau Wai Ching v Chief Executive of HKSAR: A Landmark Blow to Liberal Constitutionalism (Symposium on Constitutional Landmark Judgments in Asia), IACL-AIDC blog, December 15, 2020.