Center-Related Conferences and 2012

4 January 2012.  Fourth Annual J. Reuben Clark Law Society Faculty Section Conference, Washington College of Law, American University, 3:00 p.m., Robert Smith participating on plenary panel with paper titled “Current Frontiers in Religious Freedom Litigation.”

6 January 2012.  Committee on Religious Liberty meeting. Washington, D.C. Cole Durham participating.

16-18 February 2012. Annual Conference of the J. Reuben Clark Society, Stanford University, Cole Durham and Gayla Sorenson participating.

24-25 February 2012. Workshop on Oxford Handbook on Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding, University of Notre Dame, Cole Durham panelist, “Conceptual Foundations and Historical Contestations.”

1 March 2012.  Second Religious Freedom Discussion Series, Lecture #1, W. Cole Durham, Jr., 12:00 noon MST, webinar from Room 472 JRCB, Brigham Young University.

19 April 2012. Launch of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion Colloquium, Regent’s Park College, Oxford, U.K. Cole Durham presenting, Brett Scharffs, David Kirkham, and Donlu Thayer attending.

20 April 2012. Oxford Journal of Law and Religion Seminar, Bailliol College, Brett Scharffs and Cole Durham prsenting, David Kirkham and Donlu Thayer attending.  [Video interview of Peter Petkoff, by David Kirkham.]

19-20 April 2012. 5th Fundamental Rights Platform meeting, held in Vienna, Austria.

21 April 2012.  JRC Law Society London Chapter Event. “A Secular State Preserves Religious Freedom,” Brett Scharffs and Ronan McCrea, Latham & Watkins, Bishopsgate, London.

24-26 April 2012. 7th World Congress on “The Secular Challenge to Religious Freedom,” sponsored by the International Religious Liberty Association (IRLA), held in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, Cole Durham and Gary Doxey participating.

30 April & 1 May 2012. Managing Religious & Cultural Diversity in the Pacific. Law & Religion Conference; Apia, Samoa; sponsored by National University of Samoa, Victoria University (New Zealand), International Center for Law and Religion Studies (Utah, USA), UNESCO, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., National University of Samoa, Cole Durham participating.

2-4 May 2012.  Conference of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools“The Place of Religion in the Law School, the University and the Practice of Law,” Touro Law Center, Central Islip, New York, Elizabeth Clark participating.

14-15 May 2012. “Religion and Contemporary Society,” co-organized by Chinese Academy of Social Science, China, and Brigham Young University, United States, held at Milton A. Barlow Center, 2520 L Street N.W., Washington, D.C.,  Cole Durham and Brett Scharffs participating.

24 May 2012. “Rising Threats to American Religious Freedom,” sponsored by the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s American Religious Freedom Program, Washington, D.C., Cole Durham and Gary Doxey participating.

1-2 June 2012. Registration, Religious Autonomy and the Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief, hosted by the Department of Legal Studies, Central European University, organized by the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University, USA, Cole Durham participating. [Conference Program]

7 June 2012. Seminar on the Autonomy of the Church in the Recent Case-law of the European Court of Human Rights and of the USA Supreme Court, Council of Europe, Organized by the European Centre for Law and Justice in cooperation with Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Européennes: Religion et Société (Bruxelles – CERERS), the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) and the Strasbourg Consortium on Freedom of Conscience and Religion. Cole Durham participating.

8-9 June 2012. 20th Annual Individual and the State Conference on “Tragedy of Liberty: From Liberation to Self-Destruction and Irrelevance,” June 8-9, 2012, Central European University, Cole Durham participating.

18-19 June 2012. Conference, “Year of Russian History: State—Individual—Faith,” sponsored by the Expert Council of the Federal Human Rights Ombudsman, the Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Nor-West Region, St. Petersburg Christian University, the Russian Association of Researchers of Religion, and the State Museum of the History of Religion, with organizational help from the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, St. Petersburg, Russia. [Передачи на русском языке] Cole Durham and Elizabeth Clark attending from the Center.

21-22 June 2012. Roundtable on Law and Religion in Australia, held at Australian National University College of Law, Sydney, with Public Lecture by Professor Brett G. Scharffs, Accommodating Conscience: The Problems Arising from General and Neutral Laws, Sparke Helmore Theatre 1, ANU College of Law, Building 5, Fellows Road, 21 June, 5.30-6 pm. [Event Flyer]

22 June 2012. State-Sponsored Religious Displays in the U.S. and Europe, sponsored by the Center for Law and Religion at St. John’s School of Law and the Department of Law at the Libera Università Maria Ss. Assunta (LUMSA). Held at LUMSA, Complesso del Giubileo via di Porta Castello, 44 – Rome. Cole Durham participating on panel to discuss “Lautsi, the Margin of Appreciation, and the Choice of Secularisms.” [Program]

8-20 July 2012  China Certificate Training Program, held under the auspices of Peking University Law School, Beijing, China, cosponsored by the International Center for Law and Religion Studies and the Center for Administrative and Constitutional Law at Peking University Law School.  Brett Scharffs and Cole Durham participating.

20-22 August 2012.  International Religious Liberty Association 14th Meeting of Experts, an International Think Tank on Religious Freedom: Models of Secularity and Religious Freedom: Canada, the United States of America, and Europe, Cole Durham participating with “Comparative Approaches to Offensive Religious Expression,” Multi-Faith Centre, University of Toronto, Canada. 

5 September 2012.  Religious Freedom Discussion Series Lecture by  Professor Brett G. Scharffs — “Accommodating Conscience: The HHS Contraception Mandate and the Problems Arising from General and Neutral Laws,” Brigham Young University.

7-9 October 2012. “Religion,  Democracy, and Civil Society,” 19th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, to be held at the J. Reuben Clark Law School on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

11 October 2012. “Which Model, Whose Liberty?: Differences between the U.S. and European Approaches to Religious Freedom,” sponsored by the Religious Freedom Project, The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Georgetown University, and the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, held in Washington, D.C.  Cole Durham, Robert Smith, and Elizabeth Clark participating.

3 November 2012. Ninth Beijing Forum: 【2012 Panel II】Faith and Society: Spiritual Reflections of Global Age Peking University. Brett Scharffs participating.

26 November – 5 December 2012. Inaugural Certificate Training Program on “Religion and the Rule of Law in Vietnam and Southeast Asia,” at the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Brett Scharffs and Cole Durham participating.

1 December 2012. INFORM Autumn Seminar: Changing Beliefs and Schisms in New Religious Movements, 9.30am – 5.15 pm, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, London School of Economics.  Cole Durham participating.

4 December 2012. RELIGARE Final Conference: “Religious Diversity and Secular Models in Europe:  Innovative Approaches to Law and Policy”, Leuven, Belgium.  [full program]  Cole Durham participating.

5 December 2012. Religious Freedom Discussion Series, Robert Smith, “A Contest of Greatest Importance: The Battle over the Meaning of Religious Freedom,” 12:00 noon, 472 JRCB, Brigham Young University.

5 December 2012. International Conference “Religious Instruction in the World Today”, Institute of St. Stanislava, Hall Matija Tomc, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Cole Durham and Elena Miroshnikova participating.

7-8 December 2012. Interdisciplinary and international conference “Group Autonomy and Its Critics: Human Rights Perspectives”, University of Oslo. [program] Cole Durham participating.

11-12 December 2012.  The Institute of World Religions (IWR) in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), international conference, The China Social Science Forum on “Religious Charities and Social Development,” Beijing. Cole Durham and Brett Scharffs participating.