The Asia Foundation

Expertise: Governance and Rule of Law - global and across Asia; Pakistan; the Philippines; Sri Lanka; and Islamic legal institutions.

Erik Jensen is The Asia Foundation's senior advisor for governance and law, co-director of the Rule of Law Program at Stanford Law School, and a senior research scholar at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. In his activities for the Foundation, Mr. Jensen has worked extensively on the political economy of development and the relationship of law and legal institutions to social, political and economic development. Between 1997 and 2009, Jensen led, co-led or advised on the following ADB-funded diagnostics, all of which were designed through consultations between the ADB andn The Asia Foundation and implemented by the Foundation: the legal system in Pakistan, a nine-country study on judicial independence in Asia, a path-breaking study on legal identity, two studies on legal empowerment, and a study on access to justice for the poor in rapidly urbanizing Asia. He has previously served as The Asia Foundation's country representative in Pakistan and the assistant country representative in the Philippines. Mr. Jensen served as a law consultant to the Foundation's Sri Lanka program, while also holding the position of Fulbright senior lecturer in law at the University of Colombo and the Open University.

In addition to his work for The Asia Foundation, Mr. Jensen has, for the last 25 years, taught, written, and practiced in the field of law and development in 30 countries, as a Fulbright scholar and consultant to the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and various other multilateral, bilateral, and non-profit organizations. He teaches courses on Statebuilding and the Rule of Law and Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. His recent publications include: Erik G. Jensen & Thomas C. Heller, Beyond Common Knowledge: Empirical Approaches to the Rule of Law (Stanford University Press: 2003); Jensen, "Justice and the Rule of Law," in Charles Call, ed., Building States to Build Peace (Lynne Reinner: 2008); Cole and Jensen, "Democracy, Human Rights, Governance and the Rule of Law in Asia," in Order and Institutional Architecture in Asia, edited by Bates Gill and Michael Green (Columbia University Press: 2009).

Education: B.A. in political science from Augustana College, South Dakota; J.D. from the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota; and a LL.M. from the London School of Economics.