Nick Cheesman

Nick Cheesman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political and Social Change at the Australian National University. He is a law-and-society scholar of mainland Southeast Asia who studies courts, policing and state violence. While a Visiting Scholar at the American Bar Foundation he is working on a book manuscript about torture and bureaucracy in Thailand. The manuscript builds on over eight years of research, parts of which he has published previously in Law and Social Inquiry (2023). He has published on cognate topics in journals such as the Law and Society Review, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Human Rights Quarterly, and the Hague Journal on the Rule of Law. His Opposing the Rule of Law: How Myanmar’s Courts Make Law and Order (Cambridge, 2015) won the Asian Law and Society Association book award. His previous fellowships include a Senior Fellowship at the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, University at Buffalo; a Membership at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; and, a prior visiting position at the ABF.