Law and Religion Conference at Melbourne Law School – 13, 15-16 July 2011

The International Center for Law and Religion Studies co-hosted a public lecture and conference on Law and Religion with the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies, Melbourne Law School, held at Melbourne Law School on 15-16 July. The outstanding group of speakers included experts from Australia and 12 other countries, including the United States, Malaysia, China, Italy, Norway, Argentina, Spain and Belgium. On Thursday 13 July 2011, Professor John Witte, one of the world’s leading experts on law and religion, gave a free public lecture on the impact of bills of rights on religious freedom. Conference speakers included Dean Carolyn Evans of Melbourne Law School and Professors Cole Durham and Brett Scharffs of Brigham Young University. Other Australian participants were Melissa Crouch and Professors Abdullah Saeed and Adrienne Stone of the University of Melbourne, as well as Professors Nicholas Aroney (University of Queensland), Ngaire Naffine (University of Adelaide), Pauline Ridge (Australian National University), and Father Frank Brennan (Australian Catholic University). Also speaking were Dr. Kim-Kwong Chan (Hong Kong), Ratna Osman, LLB (Sisters in Islam, Malaysia), and Professors Edward H. Larson (Pepperdine, USA), Gerhard Robbers (Germany), Jeroen Temperman (Netherlands), Rik Torfs (Belgium), Juan G. Navarro Floria (Argentina), Tore Lindholm (Norway),  Carlos Valderamma A. (Peru), and Javier Martínez-Torrón (Spain).