Professor Jackson has specialized and published widely in the areas of Correctional Law and Penal Policy and Aboriginal and Treaty Rights. He has been involved as a researcher or counsel in many of the Aboriginal rights cases that have come before the Supreme Court of Canada over the past 25 years. He is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Judicature (UK), a Member of the Bar of British Columbia, and a Professor of Law at the University of British Columbia. He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1999.

Professor Jackson was co-counsel in the Haida Nation litigation in which the Supreme Court affirmed a Crown duty to consult and accommodate First Nations in relation to resource development decisions affecting lands to which they have asserted Aboriginal rights and title. He was also co-counsel in the Gitksan Wet'suwet'en land claims case, Delgamuukw v. The Attorney-General of British Columbia.

Professor Jackson also served in as a consultant to the Law Reform Commission of Canada and authored In Search of the Pathways to Justice: Alternative Dispute Resolution in Aboriginal Communities. He has also authored two major reports, Justice Behind the Walls and Locking Up Natives in Canada. Professor Jackson also published Prisoners of Isolation: Solitary Confinement in Canada, as well as Sentences That Never End.

Professor Jackson received a Bachelor of Laws from Kings College, London and a Master of Laws from Yale Law School.