The International Center for Law and Religion Studies participated in three sessions of the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Salt Lake City. 15-19 October 2016. W. Cole Durham, Jr., Center Director, and Brett Scharffs, Associate Director, organized these sessions to discuss religious freedom issues highlighted by Parliament organizers.

Durham moderated the panel Religion, Religious Freedom and Development, featuring the following global experts:

• Rosalind I.J. Hackett, Professor and Head of Religious Studies and adjunct in Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, 
• Katherine Marshall, Executive Director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue and Senior Fellow at Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, 
• Nokuzola Mndende, Director of Icamagu Institute, Eastern Cape, South Africa, and 
• Rashied Omar, a Research Scholar of Islamic Studies and Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame. 

These experts discussed the importance of taking religious engagement and religious freedom policies into account in shaping policies that can advance development and help overcome poverty and wealth disparities worldwide. More information on this session and the panelists is available here. 

A second panel, Conscience, Freedom of Religious Expression and Hate Speech: Balancing Freedoms in Peacebuilding, moderated by Professor Brett Scharffs, featured

• Susan Benesch, Faculty Associate of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and Director of the Dangerous Speech Project, 
• Nazila Ghanea, Associate Professor of International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford and a member of the OSCE Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief,
• Jeroen Temperman, associate professor of Public International Law at the Department of International Law of Erasmus University Rotterdam, and 
• Marco Ventura, Professor in law and religion at the Law Department of the University of Siena (Italy). 

This prominent group of human rights experts discussed developments since adoption of the Rabat Plan of Action, and how members of different religious communities can play a constructive role in working with governments and other civil society actors to strike an appropriate balance between protection of religious expression rights and avoiding inflammatory incitement situations. More detail on this session and the panelists is available here. 

The Contraceptive Mandate Debate: Hobby Lobby and Beyond, moderated by Professor Durham, featured

• Caroline Mala Corbin, Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law, 
• Frederick Mark Gedicks, holder of the Guy Anderson Chair at Brigham Young University Law School, 
• Luke Goodrich, Deputy General Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and 
• Robin Fretwell Wilson, the Roger and Stephany Joslin Professor of Law and Director of the Family Law and Policy Program at the University of Illinois College of Law

These national-level experts identified key issues and legal arguments for and against protecting religious freedom in the aftermath of the Hobby Lobby decision. To learn more about this session and its presenters, click here. 

The Parliament of the World’s Religions is the oldest, the largest, and the most inclusive gathering of people of all faith and traditions. To find out more about this remarkable event, go the event website.