Jinks received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas in 1991, M.A. and M.Phil. in sociology from Yale University in 1998 and 1999 respectively, and J.D. from Yale Law School in 1998. After law school, he clerked for Judge William C. Canby, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and worked in the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. He has also worked as Senior Legal Advisor and United Nations Representative for the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre in India, and served in the delegation of the International Service for Human Rights at the Rome conference for the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court.