Sharmila L. Murthy
Professor of Law and Public Policy and Faculty Co-Director, Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration
Education
Harvard Kennedy School of Government, MPA
Harvard Law School, JD
Bio
Professor Murthy joined Northeastern University in 2023 as professor of law and public policy within the School of Law and the College of Social Sciences. Her scholarship focuses on examining legal barriers to achieving environmental justice, improving access to water and addressing climate change. Between 2021 and 2024, she was on leave to serve at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, first as senior counsel and then as director for environmental justice. Prior to joining the Northeastern faculty, Professor Murthy served as professor of law and director of faculty scholarship and research at Suffolk University Law School.
Professor Murthy has received numerous awards for scholarship. Her article, “Disrupting Utility Law for Water Justice,” published in the Stanford Law Review in 2024, was selected in 2025 for inclusion in the 17th edition of the prestigious Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR). A joint publication of the Environmental Law Institute’s (ELI) Environmental Law Reporter and Vanderbilt University Law School, ELPAR identifies the year’s best academic articles that present legal and policy solutions to pressing environmental problems. In 2021, Professor Murthy was named the Haub Environmental Law Distinguished Junior Scholar by the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. In 2022, she also received the Charles P. Kindregan Scholarship Award from Suffolk University Law School.
Professor Murthy also received three different teaching awards from Suffolk University, and received several awards for her mentorship of students, including being named Faculty Advisor of the Year by the American Constitution Society (ACS) in 2021. She also served as chair of the Human Rights Section and of the Environmental Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools, the latter of which received the Section of the Year Award in 2019 under her direction.
Previously, she was a visiting scholar and fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she co-founded the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation Program at Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. In 2014, she was selected as a finalist for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation. Professor Murthy began her legal career as a public interest poverty lawyer. She was awarded a Skadden Fellowship to work with the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands, where she received the New Advocate of the Year award from the Tennessee Alliance of Legal Services. She also litigated complex and class action cases as an associate with Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein.
Professor Murthy currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Conservation Law Foundation and on the Advisory Board of Justice at Work. In addition, she previously served on the board of HumanRight2Water, as the president of the Boston lawyer ACS chapter, as the founding president of the Nashville lawyer ACS chapter, and as the president of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.
Professor Murthy received her JD from Harvard Law School, her MPA from Harvard Kennedy School of Government and her BS in natural resources from Cornell University. She clerked for the Honorable Martha Craig Daughtrey on the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and was also a US Fulbright Scholar in India.
Selected Works
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- “Disrupting Utility Law for Water Justice,” 76 Stanford Law Review 597 (2024); Selected for inclusion in the 17th edition of the prestigious Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review.
- “Divided Infrastructure: Legal Exclusion and Water Inequality in an Urban Slum in Mumbai, India,” Environment and Urbanization (co-author) (2023).
- “The Constitutionality of State and Local “Norm Sustaining” Actions on Global Climate Change: The Foreign Affairs Federalism Grey Zone,” 5 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Public Affairs 35 (2020).
- “States and Cities as “Norm Sustainers”: The Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Role of Subnational Actors,” 31 Virginia Environmental Law Journal (2019).
- “Translating Legal Norms into Quantitative Indicators: Lessons from the Global Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Sector,” 42 William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review 385 (2018).
- “The Role of Adaptation in Mobile Technology Innovation for the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene,” 13 Water Practice & Technology 143 (co-author) (2018).
- “Water and Conflict in Central Asia: The Role of International Law and Diplomacy,” 18 Vermont Journal of Environmental Law 400 (co-author) (2017).
- “A New Constitutive Commitment to Water,” 36 Boston C. J. of Law & Soc. Just. 151 (2016).
“Addressing Barriers in the Water-Recycling Innovation System to Reach Water Security in Arid Countries,” J. Cleaner Production (2016). - Making Technological Innovation Work for Sustainable Development, Proc. of the Nat. Acad. of Sciences (co-author) (2016).
- “Constitutional Impediments to Decentralization in the World’s Largest Federal Country [India],” 26 Journal of Comparative & International Law 78 (co-author) (2016).
- “Can International Water Law be a Tool for ‘Water Diplomacy’?,” 27 Journal of International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict 17 (2014).
- “The Human Right(s) to Water and Sanitation: History, Meaning and the Controversy over Privatization,” 31 Berkeley Journal of International Law Vol. 89 (2013).
- “The Human Right to Water in Israel: A Case Study of the Unrecognized Bedouin Villages in the Negev,” 46 Israel Law Review 25 (co-author) (2013).
- “Reconciling the Carbon Market and the Human Right to Water: The Role of Suppressed Demand under Clean Development Mechanism and the Gold Standard,” 43 Environmental Law 517 (co-author) (2013).
- “Land Security and the Challenges of Realizing the Human Right to Water and Sanitation in the Slums of Mumbai, India,” 14 Health and Human Rights Journal 1 (co-author) (2012).
- “Iraq’s Constitutional Mandate to Justly Distribute Water: The Implications of Federalism, Islam, International Law and Human Rights,” 42 George Washington International Law Review 749 (co-author) (2010).
- “The Self-Employed Women’s Association’s (SEWA) Rural Savings and Credit Program in Gujarat, India,” Harvard Kennedy School of Government Review (co-author) (2000).
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- “Water and Sanitation.” In Critical Issues in Human Rights and Development (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021).
- “Exploring Urban Water Challenges in the Middle East: Integrating Islamic Principles with Demand Management Strategies.” In Water Governance: An Evaluation of Alternative Architectures, 164-192 (co-author) (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2013).
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- “Northeastern Law Students Contribute Comments Through Federal Rulemaking Process,” Northeastern Law News Announcement (October 1, 2025).
- “Trump Agencies Lean Into Shortcuts for Public Comment Process,” Bloomberg Law (September 29, 2025).
- “Trump’s Climate Rollback Takes on a Key Scientific Finding,” The New York Times (September 18, 2025).
- “EPA Endangerment Finding: Why One Rule Shapes US Climate Policy,” Northeastern Global News (August 12, 2025).
- “States Become “Norm Sustainers” on Environmental Justice,” Legal Planet (July 30, 2025).
- “Trump’s Shortcut Rulemaking Is Shortchanging All of Us,” The Hill (July 13, 2025).
- “Murthy Named Faculty Co-Director of Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration,” Northeastern Law News Announcement (June 18, 2025).
- “Environmental Justice is Not About “Them.” It’s About All of Us,” American Constitution Society (March 26, 2025).
- “Professor Murthy’s Water Justice Article Selected for Prestigious 2025 Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review,” Northeastern Law News Announcement (January 16, 2025).
- “Why We Need National Water Affordability Legislation,” Harvard Law and Policy Review Blog (March 21, 2016).
- “Lessons from Flint’s Water Crisis,” Cognoscenti (February 8, 2016).
- “The Right to Water in the Slums of Mumbai, India,” 93 Bulletin of the World Health Organization 815 (2015).
- “Opening The Taps: The Case For Water Affordability Legislation,” Cognoscenti (March 20, 2015).
- “In India, Dying To Go: Why Access To Toilets Is A Women’s Rights Issue,” Cognoscenti (June 25, 2014).
- “Iraqi Elections are of Strategic Interest to U.S,” Op-Ed, The Tennessean (3/6/2009).
Sharmila L. Murthy
Professor of Law and Public Policy and Faculty Co-Director, Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration