Marija Jovanovic

Marija is a human rights lawyer with a research interest in modern slavery and human trafficking, business and human rights, labour rights, migration and refugee law, and regional human rights regimes. She holds DPhil, MPhil, and Magister Juris degrees from the University of Oxford, and a law degree from Serbia.

Marija is currently a Research Fellow in Business and Human Rights at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, and a Co-Investigator on behalf of the Bonavero Institute to the AHRC-funded Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre. She also holds a Senior Lectureship at the Essex Law School. She previously held a Research Fellowship at the Centre for International Law, the National University of Singapore, and a Lectureship in Law in Serbia.

She is the author of State Responsibility for ‘Modern Slavery’ in Human Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2023) and her recent work includes a research project on the experiences of modern slavery survivors in the UK prisons and a legal analysis of compatibility of the UK’s Treaty with Rwanda and the Safety of Rwanda Bill 2024, Illegal Migration Act 2023, and Nationality and Borders Act 2022 with its international obligations towards victims of modern slavery.

Marija’s academic work seeks to contribute to both theory and practice of human rights law and is policy-oriented and impact-driven. Her legal consulting roles include collaborations with prominent international and civil society organisations in the human rights field. Her recent piece in the Conversation is shortlisted for the ‘Best written opinion piece dealing with Modern Slavery’ category at the Anti-Slavery Day Media Awards 2024 hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery and the Human Trafficking Foundation.