Mr. Danushka Manoj is an accomplished legal scholar and attorney with expertise in Intellectual Property Law, Human Rights, and Environmental Law. He currently serves as a Senior Lecturer at The Open University of Sri Lanka, where he has been instrumental in teaching, research, and curriculum development since 2013. His academic journey is marked by excellence, holding a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) with Honours, a Master of Human Rights from the University of Colombo, and an MPhil in Intellectual Property Law, with a special focus on Traditional Knowledge protection. Additionally, he passed the Attorney-at-Law final examination with distinction at the Sri Lanka Law College and is a member of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.
Before his academic career, Mr. Manoj had the privilege of working from 2010 to 2012 with the late Justice Professor C.G. Weeramantry, a world-renowned legal scholar and former Vice-President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). He contributed to the Weeramantry International Centre for Peace Education and Research (WICPER), assisting in legal empowerment initiatives, capacity-building programmes, and peace education projects across Sri Lanka.
Mr. Manoj has played a key role in legal education, previously serving as the Director of the LLM Programme at The Open University of Sri Lanka (2023-2024). He is also a visiting lecturer, examiner, and postgraduate research supervisor across multiple Sri Lankan universities. His work extends beyond academia into legal research and advocacy, with a keen interest in the intersection of law, technology, and sustainable development. He has presented and published extensively on topics such as blockchain and cryptocurrency regulations, folklore protection, climate adaptation laws, and human rights-based approaches to development.
His academic excellence has been recognized with multiple awards, including the Best Research Paper Award in the Accounting, Finance, and Banking track at the International Conference on Management and Entrepreneurship (ICOME 2023) and the Senate Award for Research Excellence (2024) from The Open University of Sri Lanka. He has also been awarded prestigious fellowships, including the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) Research Fellowship (2023) and the Shanghai Open University (SOU) Visiting Scholar Fellowship (2024), granted to only 15 scholars globally for contributions to open and distance education.
In addition to his academic credentials, Mr. Manoj holds several professional qualifications, including a Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education (CTHE), and has completed specialized legal training with the Legal Aid Commission of Sri Lanka. He is a life member of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka and the Colombo Law Society and actively participates in academic networks such as the Cultures of Adaptation Network (CAN).
Through his teaching, research, and legal practice, Mr. Manoj continues to contribute to legal scholarship, policy reform, and capacity building in Sri Lanka and beyond.