Leading cancer control legal expert joins MSPGH faculty

Jonathan Liberman, an internationally recognised expert on using the law to advance cancer control, joins the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health in July as Associate Professor in Law and Global Health.

In this joint role with the Melbourne Law School, Jonathan will remain as Director of the Melbourne-based McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer, a joint initiative of the Union for International Cancer Control and Cancer Council Victoria established under his leadership in 2012.

His appointment, which will see him based at the Centre for Health Policy, is a collaboration between the McCabe Centre and the University of Melbourne. This collaboration will pursue opportunities in research, teaching, training and capacity-building – across the full spectrum of cancer/noncommunicable disease prevention, treatment, care and research, in Australia and globally, including building on the McCabe Centre’s successful international legal training program for government lawyers and policymakers.

The McCabe Centre mission is to promote the effective use of law for the prevention and control of cancer and other non-communicable diseases by building knowledge, expertise, capacity and networks at global, regional and domestic levels.

The Centre is recognised nationally and internationally as a unique contributor to innovative thinking in legal frameworks to support cancer control. It is also a World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Law and Noncommunicable Diseases and a WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Knowledge Hub.

Jonathan’s appointment brings his McCabe Centre team closer to collaborating colleagues in both law and global health at the University. Jonathan’s vision aligns with our own, namely to harness the law as a powerful enabler of good health practices and good health outcomes; to build interdisciplinary understanding and collaborations to do this; and to work across different fields of law and health to develop coherence in pursuing better health.