Rohan Edrisinha was a Senior Political Officer and Constitutional Advisor to the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) of the United Nations, New York from 2016 to 2023. He served as the constitutional advisor to the United Nations in Nepal and the head of UNDP’s constitution support programme (SPCBN) from 2011 to 2014.
He taught at the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo from 1986 to 2011, the Faculty of Law, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, in 1995, and was a visiting fellow at Harvard University (2005) and the University of Toronto (2009). He has law degrees from the University of Colombo and the University of California, Berkeley, and a post-graduate Diploma in Buddhist Studies, University of Kelaniya.
He was a founder Director and Head of the Legal and Constitutional Unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), Sri Lanka, from 1996 to 2010. He was a constitutional consultant to the Forum of Federations, which advised the Norwegian facilitated Sri Lankan peace negotiations between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE in 2001-3. Following his return to Sri Lanka in 2024, he was a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Colombo and the Standing Legal Advisor to the Anglican Bishop of Colombo. In October 2025, he undertook a six week consultancy in Kathmandu to advise the UN Resident Coordinator in Nepal on recent political developments in the country.