The Center enjoys the support and participation of remarkable people from many walks of life. We are privileged to engage in dialogue with scholars, legal professionals, religious leaders, and government officials from an ever-increasing number of nations, who join in an ongoing international discussion concerning timely issues involving law and religion – on line, at conferences throughout the world, and at our headquarters in Provo. To make this dialogue possible we rely upon an outstanding International Advisory Council and Academic Advisory Board, a rich network of Academic Research Advisors, and a small but dedicated group of faculty, staff, and student assistants. For more information about these people, please see the information below and in navigation links to the left.
The International Center for Law and Religion Studies Student Research Fellows for 2013 have begun their summer's work. The Center wishes these fine students well as they travel to their assignments worldwide. Each year the Center welcomes a group of scholars from the J. Reuben Clark Law School into the Research Fellows program, which involves a five-week summer visiting externship, this year in Salt Lake City and in eleven other locations worldwide, followed by a guided individual research project at Center headquarters in Provo.
The visiting externships take place at the offices of legal counsels for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worldwide and at the Office of General Counsel of the Church in Salt Lake City, Utah. Students become active participants in the current... more
The J. Reuben Clark Law School held its annual Barrister’s Ball & Awards Banquet at the Provo City Library on 28 March 2013. Among the awards received by students were service awards presented by The International Center for Law and Religion Studies. M. Brandon Bastian and Cecily Elizabeth Couture each received the Center's Meritorious Service Award, given to graduating law students who render extraordinary service to the Center during their three years of law school. Brandon
The Center was also pleased to present Joshua Clark Bishop, Justin Caplin, and Rachel Snow with awards... more
The International Center for Law and Religion Studies is grateful once again this year for the indispensable help of our friends who have volunteered to assist in hosting delegates to the annual International Law and Religion Symposium. The Hosting Committee is chaired by Linda Nearon and Lynn Anderson. A number of the hosts have served with us for some time, and we express our continual gratitude to these capable and generous people for making the Symposium such a memorable experience for all who attend, year after year. We enthusiastically welcome those who have more recently joined us as hosts, and we look forward to a long and fruitful association.
The International Center for Law and Religion Studies is pleased to recognize the Student Executive Committee for the Nineteenth Annual International Law and Religion Symposium. The success of the Symposium each year is due in large part to the planning and performance of these outstanding students from the J. Reuben Clark Law School, under the direction of Center Coordinator Deborah Wright and Associate Director Elizabeth Clark.
The committee members were divided into five teams: Cecily Couture and Michelle Jeffs coordinated and oversaw the Master Schedule of all Symposium events, including... more
The International Center for Law and Religion Studies is grateful again in 2012 for the contributions of a number of our dedicated Research Advisors, who joined us at the Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, serving as hosts and interpreters, and as reporters for Symposium sessions.
The Research Advisors contribute to ongoing work of the Center under the direction of Senior Fellow Gayla Sorensen, Coordinator of the Center's extensive and growing Volunteer Network.
These capable volunteers enhance the ongoing research efforts of the Center in numerous ways, including monitoring news concerning freedom of religion or belief worldwide, contributing to the comprehensive electronic... more
Professor W. Cole Durham, Jr., Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) at Brigham Young University, was installed as President of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS) at the Second ICLARS Conference, held 8-10 September 2011 in Santiago, Chile. Professor Durham succeeds Professor Silvio Ferrari of Università degli Studi di Milano. Professor Robert Smith, ICLRS Managing Director, serves as member of the ICLARS Secretariat.
ICLARS is an international network of scholars and experts of law and religion. It began in 2007, with the aim of providing a place where information, data, and opinions could be exchanged among members and made available to the broader scientific community. To this end, ICLARS... more
Cherise Bacalski, second-year law student at BYU, had the opportunity to expand her legal experience in Buenos Aires, Argentina this summer as an extern for the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS).
As a first-year law student, Bacalski developed an interest in International and Foreign Law. Upon hearing of the ICLRS externship program, her interest was piqued and a simple admiration for international law turned into a definite career option for the future.
“I would love to work in international or foreign law, so hopefully a future employer... more
Carl Hollan never expected serving an LDS mission in Taiwan would inspire him to change his career plan and springboard into the legal world. Now, as a second-year BYU law student, Hollan’s love for Asian culture has motivated him to accept an externship in China with the International Center for Law and Religion Studies.
While in China, Hollan has had the opportunity to handle government documents and work closely with scholars regarding the current religious situation. His background with the LDS Church as well as an undergraduate degree in Asian Studies has given... more
The International Center for Law and Religion Studies welcomed fourteen outstanding students from the J. Reuben Clark Law School as the 2012 Student Research Fellows of the Center's Student Research Fellows Program. The program involves a five-week visiting externship, this year in Salt Lake City and in twelve other locations worldwide, followed by a guided individual research project at the Center in Provo.
The visiting externships take place at the offices of legal counsels for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worldwide and at the Office of General Counsel of the Church in Salt Lake City, Utah. Students become active participants in the... more
The International Center for Law and Religion Studies acknowledges with gratitude the work of the thirteen Student Research Externs for Summer 2012 who came from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University and ten other law schools in the United States to spend six to eight weeks in Provo. For most of the students, this summer's work was focused primarily upon preparing the second edition of the four-volume comprehensive treatise for religious organizations and associated legal practitioners in the United States, Religious Organizations and the Law, by William Bassett, Cole Durham, and Robert Smith. Others participated... more
Brigham Young University Law student Rachel Snow reports on the six weeks she spent during summer 2011 in Auckland, New Zealand as a Student Research Fellow for the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, working with the Area Legal Counsel for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Rachel is a summa cum laude graduate of BYU-Idaho, with a BA in art history and minor in English. Before enrolling in laws school she taught English in China and served a mission for the LDS Church in Columbus, Ohio. She has also served for two years leading the Documents Team on the Student Executive Committee for the International Law and Religion Symposium. She is also president of the 2012 BYU Law Trial Advocacy team. In a YouTube video interview Rachel explains the rewards of her externship in Auckland.
The International Center for Law and Religion Studies had the very great pleasure of welcoming Dr. Elena Mikhailovna Miroshnikova to Brigham Young University for one month during Winter Semester 2012. Dr. Miroshnikova is Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Culture Studies, Ethics, Religious Studies, and Theology at Tula State Pedagogical Leo Tolstoy University (Russia), where she teaches Freedom of Conscience, Religion and Society, Religion and Politics, New Religious Movements, and Russian History of State-Church Relations.
Dr. Miroshnikova is a Member of the Board of the Russian Association of Scholars on Religious Studies, Member of the International Consortium of Law and Religion Studies (Milan), and Expert of Human Rights Without Frontiers (Belgium). Her fields of interest... more
L-R: Josh Bishop, Brandon Bastian, Kia Hohaia
Three members of the Student Executive Committee for the 2012 International Law and Religion Symposium — Brandon Bastian, Joshua Bishop, and Kia Hohaia — participated in the Law School Choir performance Carols in the Commons in December 2011. Soloist Brandon has served for two years a co-chair of the Symposium Concierge/Hosting team. He was a Student Fellow for the International Center for Law and Religion Studies during summer 2011, working with the Office of General Counsel for the LDS Church in Salt Lake City and leading the student team that contributed to the Center's amicus brief in the landmark US Supreme Court case Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Church and School v. EEOC. Josh has also served on the Executive Committee for two years, as member and... more
The International Center for Law and Religion Studies was privileged to enjoy the work of ten students who came as Summer Research Externs for 2011, from the J. Reuben Clark Law School and six other schools in the United States and Germany. This summer's work has included the externs' joining forces with several of the 2011 Student Fellows to provide invaluable help in the preparation of the Center's amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court case Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC. Following the successful filing of this complex brief on 20 June 2011, the externs turned to assisting with other important projects, especially the research and... more
We at the Center express our deep gratitude to this year's Student Research Fellows for their diligence and fortitude this summer, in completing their assignments in legal settings worldwide, and in their competent work during the eight weeks' efforts of the Hosanna-Tabor amicus brief, followed by complex and demanding assignments involving this year's revision of the Bassett/ Durham/ Smith treatise, Religious Organizations and the Law. The important work of the Center could not succeed without these excellent students from the J. Reuben Clark Law School, and as fall semester begins we recognize their contributions and look forward to our continued associations with them, as... more
Each spring, three professors from the J. Reuben Clark Law School travel to Budapest, Hungary to teach students from more than 100 countries at Central European University (CEU). BYU Law Professors Cole Durham, Clifton Fleming, and Brett Scharffs are among the distinguished visiting faculty from thirty countries who participate in the Comparative Constitutional Law Program of CEU's Department of Legal Studies. Established in 1991, CEU is a model for international education: a center for regional and global studies where there is intellectual support for building open and democratic societies... more
[From the website of the J. Reuben Clark Law School, 11 July 2011]
Elsa Jacobsen is one of ten law students and recent graduates who contributed research to a Supreme Court amicus brief for Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Church and School v. EEOC. Jacobsen gained valuable experience in research throughout her education at BYU Law—from her legal research and writing class to a Law and Religion Fellowship... more
Effective January 2011, Professor Gary B. Doxey, an Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University, has been named chair of the Center's Development Committee. Professor Doxey replaces Dean Scott Cameron, BYU Law School Associate Dean of External Relations, who had served as Development Committee Chair since summer 2008. The Center expresses its profound thanks for the invaluable service of Dean Cameron, who has served as a member of the Development Committee since its inception in 2006.
Professor Doxey, formerly the Center's... more