Background
Eivind Smith was awarded his law degree (cand.iur.) in 1974 and became a dr.juris i 1979 on a dissertation on legal questions on the borderline between Public and Private Law. Since 1986, he has served as a Professor of Public Law at the University of Oslo. However, the service has several times been interrupted in order to allow for undertaking larger research projects, chairing public legislative and enquiry commissions and guest professorships, etc. abroad.
Within the Faculty of Law, he has inter alia served as head of the Department of public and international law during two periods, head of the Faculty's Research Commission and of the Commission on international affairs, and chaired the pluridisciplinary research group on constitutional (domestic and comparative) studies.
Extra muros, he has passed a sabbatical in France, been a visiting professor or scholar with a large number of academic institutions abroad, a research director at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, served as a consultant to the Norwegian Research Council and other research-founding institutions in Norway and abroad, taken part in a multitude of research evaluations, etc., chaired the Governmental Inquiry Commission for the Municipality of Oslo (1990-91), the Governmental Commission for the preparation of new legislation on the educational system of Norway (1993-95), the Independent Parliamentary Inquiry Commission for the Banking Crisis (1997-98) and the Independent Parliamentary Inquiry Commission for the New Oslo Airport (2000-2001).
For many years, he chaired the Board of the Institute for social research (Oslo). At present, he is the president of i.a. the Tribunal on supervison of party financing https://www.partilovnemnda.no/
Internationally, he has been active in a large number of bilateral relations, within the Council of Europe (including democracy, local self-government, anti-corruption), the International Association of Constitutional Law and other NGOs.
Professor Smith is a honorary doctor at the universities of Aix-Marseille (France), Copenhagen (Denmark) og Uppsala (Sweden), a chevalier of la Légion d'Honneur (France) and an Officier of l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques (France).
He is a member of i.a. The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Academia Europaea, the International Aacademy of Comparative Law, Groupe d'Etudes et de Recherche sur la Justice Constitutionelle (GERJC), European Group of Public Law og Societas Iuris Publici Europaei (SIPE).
Fields of research
Professor Smith’s main fields of research are domestic and comparative constitutional and administrative law. In addition to questions related to the borderline between public and private law, he has published extensively on inter alia procedural and substantive administrative law (including the main Norwegian textbook on the subject), ”independent” administrative bodies, governance and political responsibility, constitutional cultures, the relationship between law and democracy, judicial review of legislation, freedom of speech, constitutions as political instruments and the relationship between Parliament and the executive. He publishes mainly in Norwegian, English and French. See further in "Publications" and in https://www.cristin.no