Jonathan Liljeblad is an Associate Professor at the Australian National University College of Law, Governance, and Policy. Jonathan holds a PhD and JD, both from the University of Southern California. He also obtained an MS from the University of Washington and a BS from the California Institute of Technology. He was born in Myanmar as a member of the Pa’Oh Indigenous peoples of Shan State, and grew up in Sweden and the United States.  

Most recently, Jonathan was a Visiting Fellow at the Human Rights Program of the Harvard Law School. Before then, he was a Research Visitor at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford University, with concurrent status as Academic Visitor to Saint Antony’s College. He was also an Academic Visitor at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at Cambridge University. In addition, he was a Fulbright Scholar to Myanmar for 2014-2015, where he was placed at Yangon University. 

Jonathan’s research centers on the complexities of promoting international norms within developing countries, with field work exploring issues of human rights, Indigenous rights, and the environment. He has current publications in Transnational Environmental Law, International Journal of Human Rights, and the Washington University Global Studies Law Review, along with a forthcoming volume from Cambridge University Press entitled Disciplinary Frontiers of Human Rights in Higher Education co-edited with Cher Weixia Chen and Felisa Tibbitts. 

His field work is predominately in Southeast Asia, and has been supported through engagement with multiple international aid organizations. Currently, Jonathan is assisting the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs in their work on Indigenous knowledge systems. He has also served Asia Development Bank, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, International Commission of Jurists, and the Danish Institute of Human Rights for projects on rule-of-law, human rights, and environmental law in Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and the Philippines.