Eivind Smith is a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 lawyer and professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of law.

He was born in Bærum

Bærum

is a municipality in Akershus county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Sandvika. Bærum was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838. A suburb of Oslo, Bærum is located on the west coast of the city....

, and took the dr.juris degree in 1979. He works at the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo

University of Oslo

The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...

, where he has been a professor since 1986. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway.-History:The University of Oslo was established in 1811. The idea of a learned society in Christiania surfaced for the first time in 1841. The city of Throndhjem had no university, but had a learned...

.

He has published a large number of juridical books and articles. He continued to update and edit the book Forvaltningsrett (administrative law

Administrative law

Administrative law is the body of law that governs the activities of administrative agencies of government. Government agency action can include rulemaking, adjudication, or the enforcement of a specific regulatory agenda. Administrative law is considered a branch of public law...

) after the original author Torstein Eckhoff

Torstein Eckhoff

Torstein Einang Eckhoff was a Norwegian civil servant and professor of law at the University of Oslo.-Personal life:...

 died. Smith has also written the book Konstitusjonelt demokrati (constitutional democracy), which forms the bulk of the curriculum in constitutional law

Constitutional law

Constitutional law is the body of law which defines the relationship of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary....

 at the university.

Smith has been the chair

Chair (official)

The chairman is the highest officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office is typically elected or appointed by the members of the group. The chairman presides over meetings of the assembled group and conducts its business in an...

 of the Norwegian Institute for Social Research

Norwegian Institute for Social Research

The Norwegian Institute for Social Research is a social science research institute based in Oslo, Norway.It was founded in 1950 by Vilhelm Aubert, Arne Næss, Eirik Rinde, and Stein Rokkan. It cooperates closely with the University of Oslo and the Research Council of Norway, but is a contract-based...

from 2007 to 2010.