Dr Jasmin Johurun Nessa is a Research Associate in International Law at the University of Bristol Law School, working on a Leverhulme Trust-funded project on the relationship between international humanitarian law and international human rights law in armed conflict. Her research sits within public international law, with expertise in the use of force, self-defence, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international criminal law, and the practice of the United Nations Security Council and International Court of Justice.

Jasmin completed her PhD at the University of Liverpool in 2024, successfully defending her thesis with no corrections. Her doctoral research addressed a foundational but neglected problem in the law on the use of force: how the armed attack that triggers the right of self-defence is to be proved. Drawing on 75 years of State practice, Security Council records and international jurisprudence, the thesis reframed self-defence as a doctrine of evidentiary justification as well as substantive legal justification. This research now forms the basis of her monograph project, Self-Defence and Evidence in International Law.

Since 2020, Jasmin has served as Co-General Editor of the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law’s Digest of State Practice, leading an international team on a major peer-reviewed State practice project, synthesising global developments on the use of force into a verifiable research record for scholarly and practitioner audiences. Her professional work also includes acting as Assistant Counsel before the International Court of Justice, including appearing before the Court, and working on major proceedings before that Court and the International Criminal Court concerning armed conflict, accountability and civilian protection.