About
Thesis title
'Beyond Formality: Labour Law, Caste, and the Political Economy of 'Informal' Labour in Pakistan' [provisional]
Supervisors
Dr Margot Salomon and Dr Nafay Choudhury
About
Umar is a PhD student at the LSE Law School. His research explores the exclusion of informal workers in Pakistan from labour laws and formal juridico-political remedies, their history of militant struggles for socio-political power, and the impact of state- and development-sector-led efforts to extend formal rights on their struggles. He holds an LLM (magna cum laude) in International Law and Justice from Fordham University School of Law, where he studied as a Fulbright and Fordham Graduate Student Scholar, and an LLB (Honours) from SOAS, University of London.
Before joining the LSE, Umar worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Alongside other teaching and research roles at law schools in Pakistan, he has also practised as a disputes lawyer and worked as a Judicial Law Clerk at the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and as a Judicial Extern at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In addition to his research, Umar continues to be involved with workers' and peasants' movements and cultural work in progressive theatre and literature.
Research interests
Class, Caste, and Informality; Socio-Legal Studies; Critical Development Studies; Agrarian Change and Power Relations; Political Economy of Labour; Working Class and Social Movements; State Theory; Radical and Resistance-based lawyering
Affiliations / memberships
- Punjab Bar Council, Pakistan
Awards & scholarships
- LSE PhD Studentship
- Fulbright Masters Scholarship
- Fordham University Graduate Student Scholarship