■ Rohan Edrisinha

Rohan Edrisinha is a member of the faculty of law at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he specializes in constitutional law. Dr. Edrisinha is also a founder, director and head of the Legal Division at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, an independent public policy institute engaged in research and advocacy within the fields of conflict resolution, constitutional and law reform, human rights and governance. Edrisinha holds an LL.B from University of Colombo and an LL.M from the University of California, Berkeley. He was also a member of the faculty of law at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa in1995. At present, he is a visiting fellow at the Centre for the Study of World Religions in the Harvard Divinity School. He is currently researching religion, ethnicity and nationalism as part of the Sri Lankan peace process. In recent years, he has been exploring and researching different options for a political solution to Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict. He was an unofficial advisor to the Chief Government negotiator, the Minister of Constitutional Affairs, during the peace talks between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE in 2003 and 2004 and attended the last 3 rounds of talks during those two years.

The interview was conducted in April 2009 in Cape Town about his views and experiences with constitution building.