Movement lawyer · Feminist climate strategist · Indo-Fijian, Pasifika

Law, money and movements. I work where they meet, and I ask who holds the power in the room.

For nearly twenty years I have helped UN mandates, feminist funders and frontline movements across the Pacific, Asia and the Global South turn legal analysis into strategy, and strategy into resources that land where they are needed. Not where they are convenient.

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Kavita Naidu smiling, standing against a sandstone wall, wearing a blush blazer and a shell necklace
Admitted in New Zealand, Fiji and New South Wales Former criminal prosecutor, NSW Office of the DPP Former National Human Rights Officer, OHCHR Pacific UNFCCC Women & Gender Constituency, COP25–COP28

Clients and partners include

OHCHR · UN Women · International Maritime Organization · Equality Fund · Fondation CHANEL · GAGGA · Mama Cash · Pacific Feminist Fund · Oxfam · DAWN · Plan International Australia · Greenpeace Australia Pacific

Practice

Three strands of one practice. Most of my work pulls on all three at once, because a legal argument without resourcing goes nowhere, and money without political analysis tends to reproduce the problem it was meant to solve.

01

Legal strategy for movements

International human rights, climate, ocean and gender law, made usable by the people who need it. I draft submissions, briefs and interventions for UN mechanisms, and translate the ICJ Advisory Opinion on climate change into positions Pacific movements can act on.

Supported the UN Special Rapporteurs on the right to a healthy environment and the right to development on oceans, and on loss and damage.

02

Feminist funding and philanthropic advice

Moving money towards the groups usually written out of the call for proposals. I write scoping analyses and funding strategies, design decolonial grantmaking, and sit on advisory boards that decide where resources go.

Built the case behind AUD$4 million from Fondation CHANEL to seed the Feminist Climate Collective. Advised on the Equality Fund's CAD6.5 million Prepare, Respond and Care grant.

03

Strategy, research and facilitation

Organisational and movement strategy, feminist participatory action research, and training that leaves people with the legal literacy to advocate on their own terms. Designed to hold plural solidarities together without flattening them.

Led FPAR mobilising grassroots women across 27 countries in Asia and the Pacific. Trained more than 2,000 activists, lawyers, judges, officials and journalists.

Selected work

What the brief was, what I did, and what changed as a result.

Fondation CHANEL · Australia · 2024–2025

Building a feminist climate movement from a standing start

Eighteen months of scoping and mapping feminist funders and movements made the case for a feminist climate justice movement in Australia. The result was AUD$4 million in seed funding for the Feminist Climate Collective, whose advocacy platform and movement strategy I drafted, with leadership held by First Nations, Torres Strait Islander, Pasifika and women of colour.

Pacific Feminist Fund · 2025

Funding where Pacific funding does not reach

A scoping analysis and funding strategy for feminist and climate movements in the Pacific's occupied territories: Guåhan, West Papua, Māʻohi Nui and Kanaky. Built around redistribution, reciprocity and trust in self-organising.

International Maritime Organization · 2025–2026

Gender-responsive maritime governance for the Pacific

Developed the Pacific Gender-Responsive Maritime Governance Guidance and a regional advocacy framework, and led training for more than 30 Pacific Women in Maritime Associations.

Oxfam Pacific · 2026

A grant designed around Vā

On the Pacific-led advisory board for the Tipping Point Pacific Grant, I drafted the call for applications around Vā, the relational space connecting land, ocean and life, to reach small and emerging collectives that mainstream grant streams pass over.

Writing

Policy briefs, research and commentary on feminist climate justice, international law, militarisation and the Pacific.

All publications →
DAWN Feminist · Policy brief · 2026 · co-authored Peace Under-Sea Siege: the role of “island chains” as fortified, militarised walls of great power projection in the Pacific Ocean Loss & Damage Collaboration · 2025 What the ICJ Advisory Opinion means for loss and damage under the UN climate regime Plan International Australia, Edith Cowan University and KiriCAN · 2025 Pacific Girls in a Changing Climate Overland · Commentary · 2024 Pacific nations can't afford to be hypocrites on human rights Oxfam Asia · Toolkit · 2022 Feminist Participatory Action Research: empowering women, transforming systems

Speaking and media

Keynotes, moderation and training, from multilateral negotiations to community halls.

COP26, Glasgow

Moderated a dialogue between five women heads of government, while serving as global focal point for the Women & Gender Constituency.

UN Women Australia

International Women's Day keynote in Sydney alongside Jane Goodall, 2022.

Women Deliver 2026

Speaker and moderator on climate, COP31 and international law, and host of the “Have your Sei” side event for Pasifika women.

Climate Changers

Featured climate leader in Tim Flannery's documentary, screened at NSW Parliament. Appearances on ABC Q&A and ABC News Breakfast.

Invite me to speak →

Organising

Not services. The spaces I have helped build because they were missing.

Pasifika Diaspora Climate Leaders Alliance

Standing infrastructure connecting Australian climate organising to Pacific movements, on Pacific terms.

Pasifika for Palestine Australia

Diaspora organising that names Pacific governments' complicity and builds cross-regional solidarity.

Progressive International

Emeritus Council member; launched the Pacific chapter.

About

I am an Indo-Fijian lawyer who spent a decade in courtrooms and law firms before deciding the law was more useful in the hands of movements. I prosecuted for the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, worked at the Fiji Attorney-General's Chambers and in Magic Circle firms in London, then joined the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Pacific.

Since then I have led the climate justice programme at the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, sat on the board of Greenpeace Australia Pacific, worked as Senior Pacific Strategist at Climate Action Network Australia, and researched with Edith Cowan University. I hold a Master of International Law from UNSW.

My practice is decolonial and feminist by method, not by branding. That means asking whose knowledge counts, who carries the risk, and who is left holding the consequences when the project ends.

Have a brief that needs law, money and politics in the same room?

I take on advisory retainers, defined projects and board or advisory roles with UN agencies, intergovernmental bodies, feminist and climate funders, legal teams and movement organisations. Remote across the Pacific, Asia and the Global South; in person from Sydney.

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Typical engagements

Legal analysis, submissions and briefs

Funding scopes and grantmaking design

Organisational and movement strategy

Training, facilitation and FPAR

Keynotes and moderation