Overview
Jonathan Liberman is an Associate Professor in Law and Global Health at Melbourne Law School. Jonathan has over twenty-five years' experience in legal, regulatory and policy research, teaching, advice, training and capacity-building relating to health at both global and domestic levels, particularly tobacco control, access to medicines and vaccines, infectious disease prevention and control, and concussion in sport.
Prior to joining the University, Jonathan was the Founding Director of the McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer, serving as Director from February 2012 to March 2020. Under Jonathan's leadership, the McCabe Centre became a WHO Collaborating Centre for Law and Non-Communicable Diseases; a WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Knowledge Hub; and established an international legal training program that builds capacity and expertise among government officials in the use of law for the prevention and control of cancer and other NCDs, particularly in the content of developing policy coherence between health, trade, investment, human rights and sustainable development.
Since early 2020, Jonathan's work has expanded to cover the global governance of pandemics and other international health emergencies, and the legal, regulatory and policy aspects of concussion in sport.
Jonathan’s work examines the ways in which international and domestic legal instruments and processes designed to protect and promote public health interact with other legal frameworks and regimes across such areas as international trade, intellectual property, international investment, human rights, climate change and environment, and privacy.
Across his work, Jonathan brings together evidence, and experts and practitioners, from a diverse range of fields and disciplines, to develop and advocate for evidence-based legal, regulatory and policy approaches and interventions that promote public health.
Jonathan has published extensively on the relationships between law and public / global health, and co-edited two books (with Professors Tania Voon and Andrew Mitchell), 'Public Health and Plain Packaging of Cigarettes: Legal Issues', and 'Regulating Tobacco, Alcohol and Unhealthy Foods: The Legal Issues'. Jonathan was a member of the Australian Government's Expert Advisory Group on Plain Packaging and the International Agency for Research on Cancer Working Group on Social Inequalities and Cancer. He is a member of the University of Melbourne's STEMM Human Ethics Committee.
Jonathan has degrees in Arts and Law (first class honours) and a Master of Public and International Law. He received a prestigious World No Tobacco Day 2017 Award from the World Health Organization Western Pacific Regional Office for outstanding contribution to tobacco control.