Cecilia is a Fellow in the Department of International Relations at the Coral Bell School. Her work focuses on civilian protection, mass atrocity prevention, and international human protection norms. She is currently completing a three-year Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) fellowship from the ARC to study UN human protection practices. Her project, ‘United Nations Peace and Security Reform for Human Protection’, investigates how reform of the United Nations peace and security architecture is adapting to shifts in global power and the changing international order. It examines how these are in turn shaping the organisation’s human protection practices in local conflicts. It aims to develop a new framework for studying the international-local interactions that influence global norm-making and implementation, using interdisciplinary methods drawn from sociology, international relations, and international law.

Cecilia has a geographic focus on armed conflict and political violence in South and Southeast Asia, and has conducted extensive overseas field research. Her books include Child Security in Asia: The Impact of Armed Conflict in Cambodia and Myanmar (Routledge, 2014), Civilian Protection in the Twenty-First Century: Governance and Responsibility in a Fragmented World (co-edited, Oxford University Press, 2016) and Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: A Future Agenda (co-edited, Routledge, 2019).

Cecilia is co-editor-in-chief  of the journal Global Responsibility to Protect. She is co-chair of the Asia-Pacific Regional Grouping of GAAMAC (Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes). In 2022, Cecilia is visiting fellow at the Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at the University of Oxford. In 2018, Cecilia was visiting fellow at the Ralph Bunch Institute, City University of New York.

Prior to completing her PhD, Cecilia worked for NGOs in France, Thailand and Cambodia, and for the Advisory Group for the Australian government's aid program. 

Access Cecilia's publications at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cecilia_Jacob/research

Current PhD Supervision

Nicola Mathieson (chair and primary supervisor) Topic: Learning in armed groups: The mujahideen.

Dennyza Gabiela (advisor) Topic: Refugee Agency in Transit Countries

Nicole Williams (advisor) Topic: Civil war termination

Sophie Saydan (chair and primary supervisor) Topic: Non State Armed Groups: the question for political and diplomatic legitimacy

Completed PhD Supervision

Kate McFarlane (chair, primary supervisor) Topic: Children on the Front Line in South Asian Conflicts: Case Studies of Girl Soldiers in Sri Lanka and Nepal

Ana Alonso Soriano (primary supervisor) Topic: The Children Born of War in Peru and Guatemala 

Alana Moore (chair and primary supervisor) Topic: The role of faith-based organizations in the international humanitarian order

Anna Samson (advisor) Topic: US Exit Strategies from Humanitarian Intervention

Thidar Khin Aye (advisor) Topic: Domestic human rights norm implementation in Myanmar

Ashley Clements (advisor) Topic: Negotiating Humanitarian Access: Yemen and Myanmar

International Relations, security studies, armed conflict and political violence in South and Southeast Asia, Responsibility to Protect and mass atrocity prevention, civilian protection. 

United Nations Peace and Security Reform for Human Protection Australian Research Council DECRA project 2019-2021

Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: First Experiences and a Future Agenda With Martin Mennecke. Edited Volume, (Routledge, 2019) https://www.routledge.com/Implementing-the-Responsibility-to-Protect-A-Future-Agenda-1st-Edition/Jacob-Mennecke/p/book/9780367265526 

Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: Project Page http://ir.bellschool.anu.edu.au/our-projects/implementing-responsibility-protect-domestic-processes-and-foreign-assistance