Janne Nijman’s research focuses on the emergence and development of international law ideas (e.g. sovereignty, rule of law, human dignity, legal responsibility, legal personality, global justice) in their social, political and philosophical context. From this angle, Nijman aims also to connect with contemporary developments in international-legal theory and international law.

Nijman has published extensively in the field of public international law, with among other things a monograph on international legal personality. Together with Prof. Anthony Carty (Hong Kong University), she is currently leading a research project that examines the moral and legal foundations of world order from a historical perspective: 'Morality and Responsibility of Rulers: Chinese and European Early Modern Origins of a Rule of Law for World Order'.

Since 2004, Nijman has been affiliated with the Department of International Law at the UvA and has worked as a researcher at the Amsterdam Center for International Law (ACIL). She conducts her research within the ACIL's International Rule of Law research programme. Nijman is an editor on the board of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law and of Grotiana, a journal devoted to the study of Grotius. She is a member of the board of the Royal Netherlands Society of International Law (KNVIR). 

Nijman obtained her LL.M. and PhD at Leiden University. She has been a Global Law Fellow at New York University’s Institute of International Law and Justice, in the History and Theory of International Law programme; an Early Career Visiting Fellow at Queen Mary College School of Law (University of London); and a Visiting Scholar at Johns Hopkins University Bologna Institute for Policy Research.