School of Law

Dr Sheetal Soni is the Head of Research and Higher Degrees and a Senior Lecturer in International Law, Health Law, and Bioethics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She holds LLB, LLM, and PhD degrees and is an admitted Attorney of the High Court of South Africa. Her research sits at the intersection of international law, bioethics and health law, with a particular focus on reproductive justice, emerging biotechnologies, and the protection of health and human rights in contexts of conflict and structural vulnerability.

She has undertaken consultancy work for the National Department of Health and contributed to key national policy instruments, including the Clinical Guidelines for the Provision of Genetic Services (NDoH, 2021). Her work also engages regional and international legal and policy processes. She has contributed research to United Nations mechanisms and has been admitted as amicus curiae before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in proceedings concerning the request for an advisory opinion on the obligations of African States in relation to climate change.

She has also served on expert panels convened by the Network of African Academies of Sciences and the Academy of Science of South Africa. Her current research examines how international law responds to emerging and intensifying challenges at the intersections of science, technology, health and human vulnerability. This includes the development of ethico-legal frameworks for ectogestation, the examination of reproductive violence as a modality of atrocity crimes, and an ongoing project on emergency obstetric and neonatal care in armed conflict, which advances an integrated bioethics and international law framework for the protection of pregnant women and newborns in conflict settings. More recently, her research has extended to questions of space law and governance, including the implications of emerging space technologies and activities for international law and the participation, interests and perspectives of Global South States in the development of future governance frameworks. Her expertise in international health law and bioethics has received international recognition, including her inclusion on the United Nations list of eligible candidates for appointment as Special Rapporteur on the right to health (Human Rights Council, 2026).

Dr Soni is a member of the African Society of International Law, the African Institute of International Law, the International Law Association (South African Branch), and the African Bioethics Network. She sits on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Bioethics and the Association for Responsible Research and Innovation in Genome Editing (ARRIGE) and previously served on the Advisory Board of the AI and Genomics Futures project (Ada Lovelace Institute and Nuffield Council on Bioethics). She regularly presents her work internationally and she is frequently an invited participant on expert panels and roundtables, such as the Nuffield Council (U.K) on Bioethics Expert Workshop on the 14-day Rule, and the South African National Dialogue on Heritable Human Genome Editing (HHGE), and regularly contributes to public and media engagement. She was also an invited participant in the civil society Gaza Tribunal, and opening plenary speaker at the Feminist Approaches to Bioethics Congress (2026). In 2026, Dr Soni received the International Association of Bioethics Award for Bioethics Service in the Face of Challenges, which recognises outstanding contributions that advance bioethics beyond academic scholarship and translate knowledge into meaningful impact. The award recognised her sustained commitment to principled engagement with difficult and politically sensitive ethical issues, particularly the impacts of armed conflict on women, children and other vulnerable populations.