Our Board
Thomas Pearson
Tom Pearson
chair
Thomas Pearson is the Program Director of the English-language International Master of Law programs at the Royal University of Law & Economics (RULE), where he also lectures regularly. Before studying law, he received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Economy from Hillsdale College in Michigan. He holds a Juris Doctor from George Mason University in Virginia, where he focused on law & economics and dispute resolution. His research interests include: law, political economy, dispute resolution and informal governance mechanisms.
Prior to becoming a lawyer, Tom was a technology and telecommunications policy researcher at both the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, where his focus stretched from internet governance and freedom of speech to telecommunications deregulation, media ownership and intellectual property issues. After graduating from George Mason, he maintained a general legal practice in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama (US) and handled small commercial cases as well as family law and criminal defense matters. Prior to becoming a full-time legal academic, Tom was a partner and head of the Corporate & Commercial Practice Group at a local law firm in Phnom Penh, where he dealt with commercial contracts, market entry, labor law and general business law matters.
Thomas Gordon Palmer
Tom Palmer
board member
Dr. Tom G. Palmer is the executive vice president for international programs at Atlas Network and is responsible for establishing operating programs in 14 languages and managing programs for a worldwide network of think tanks. On Nov. 10, 2016, Dr. Tom G. Palmer was named the George M. Yeager Chair for Advancing Liberty at Atlas Network. He is also a senior fellow at Cato Institute and director of Cato University. Before joining Cato, he was an H. B. Earhart Fellow at Hertford College, Oxford University, and a vice president of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. He frequently lectures in North America, Europe, Eurasia, Africa, Latin America, India, China and throughout Asia, as well as the Middle East on political science, public choice, civil society, and the moral, legal, and historical foundations of individual rights. He has published reviews and articles on politics and morality in scholarly journals such as the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Ethics, Critical Review, and Constitutional Political Economy, as well as in publications such as Slate, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Die Welt, Caixing, Al Hayat, the Washington Post, and The Spectator of London. He is the author of Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice (expanded edition 2014), and the editor of The Morality of Capitalism (2011), After the Welfare State (2012), Why Liberty (2013), Peace, Love & Liberty (2014), and Self-Control or State Control? You Decide (2016). Palmer received his B.A. in liberal arts from St. Johns College in Annapolis, Maryland, his M.A. in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., and his doctorate in politics from Oxford University.
Anirudh Singh Bhati
Anirudh Bhati
board member
Anirudh Bhati is an India-qualified lawyer with over eight years of experience counseling clients in Cambodia and India. He obtained dual degrees in commerce and law from Gujarat National Law University in India. He is attached as counsel with a Cambodian firm providing legal consulting services in Cambodia. He has also worked with international organizations as a consultant on constitutional and legislative matters. He is a co-founder with Wikimedia India, a non-profit dedicated to the advocacy of free knowledge. Anirudh is admitted to practice as an advocate with the Bar Council of India and the state Bar Council of Gujarat. He speaks English, Hindi, Gujarati, Urdu and Khmer.
Benjamin Johnson
Ben Johnson
board member
Benjamin Johnson holds a Bachelor of Arts in Japanese and Political Science and a Masters in Finance, both from the University of Western Australia. Ben has also undertaking studies in Chinese at Fudan University in Shanghai, China and has travelled extensively throughout Central Asia, the Middle East and East Asia where he now spends most of his time.
Benjamin was previously a tax consultant for EY in their Perth office in Australia. Since leaving EY, Ben has worked abroad in Cambodia, China, North Korea and the Philippines working in the tourism industry. Ben has been involved with the libertarian movement since undertaking an internship with Mankal (a Western Australia-based free market think tank) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He is originally from Perth, Australia