Rahul Rao studied law at the National Law School of India University (Bangalore), and international relations at the University of Oxford. He is currently a lecturer at the School of Oriental & African Studies (University of London), where he convene courses in security studies and diplomacy.

His forthcoming book, Third World Protest: between home and the world (Oxford University Press, 2010), explores the relationship between cosmopolitanism and nationalism in postcolonial protest.

Current research projects include: (i) Provincializing Westphalia, a volume on non-Western conceptions of order and justice co-edited with Andrew Hurrell; and (ii) Queering the International, a study of how queer politics might speak to some of the core questions of international relations and political theory.