Oxford Conference: International Protection of Religious Freedom, Emerging Issues

The International Center for Law and Religion Studies of the J. Reuben Clark Law School, along with the Brigham Young University London Centre, under the leadership of Centre Academic Director, Professor James Faulconer, sponsored the conference “International Protection of Religious Freedom: Emerging Issues”, held at Harris Manchester College, Oxford University, 18-19 June 2013.

This conference was a central event of the inaugural Oxford Journal of Law and Religion Summer Academy. Among those attending were ICLRS Director W. Cole Durham, Jr., President of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS, Milan) and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion; ICLRS Associate Director and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs of the J. Reuben Clark Law School Brett G. Scharffs, who is a member of the Advisory Board of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion; and Donlu Thayer, ICLRS Managing Editor and a Case Note Editor of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion. Other Journal editors attending were Editor-in-Chief Julian Rivers; Managing Editor Peter Petkoff; Case Note Editor Jessica Giles; Senior Publisher and Open Editor Rhodri Jackson; and Senior Production Editor Maxine Daniels.

Keynote addresses at the conference were given by Heiner Bieldefeldt, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, and Rabbi Dr. Naftali Rothenberg, Senior Fellow, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Jerusalem. Conference topics Comparative Perspectives on Minority Issues; Legal Protection of Holy Places; Parallel Sovereignties: Coexistence of Religious and Non-Religious Legal Systems; and Political Theology Themes were addressed by international experts:

Kent Greenawalt, University Professor, Columbia University Law School; 
Christopher McCrudden, Queen’s University, Belfast and Lincoln College, Oxford, barrister-at-law (Grey’s Inn); 
John Milbank, Professor in Religion, Politics, and Ethics, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Nottingham; 
Oliver O’Donovan, Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh;
Joan L. O’Donovan, Honorary Fellow, School of Divinity, New College, University of Edinburgh;
Joseph E. David, Sub-Faculty Associate Member, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford; 
Gary Wilton, Archbishop of Canterbury’s Representative to the European Union; Canon, Holy Trinity Church Brussels, Programme Director, Wilton Park;
Peter Edge, Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom;
Robert Ombres, Raymond of Penyafort Fellow in Canon Law, Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford;
Matthias Rohe, Founding Director, Erlangen Center for Islam and the Law in Europe;
Daniel Seidermann, Attorney at Law, Terrestrial Jerusalem, Israel;
Marco Ventura, Faculty of Law, University of Siena, Italy; Faculty of Canon Law, Katholieke University Leuven;
Renata Uitz, Professor of Law, Central European University, Legal Studies Department; 
Mark W. Janis, William F. Starr Professor of Law, University of Connecticut; Visiting Fellow and Formerly Reader in Law, University of Oxford; 
W. Cole Durham, Jr., Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS), President of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS, Milan), and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion;
Robin Fretwell-Wilson, Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University School of Law;
David Kirkham, Senior Fellow for Comparative Law and International Policy, International Center for Law and Religion Studies, J. Reuben Clark Law School, and Professor of Political Science, Brigham Young University;
Brett Scharffs, Francis R. Kirkham Professor of Law and Associate Director, International Center for Law and Religion Studies, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University;
Peter Petkoff, Law Lecturer, Brunel Law School, Research Fellow; Director, Law, Religion, and International Relations Programme, Centre for Christianity and Culture, Regent’s Park College, Managing Editor, Oxford Journal of Law and Religion;
Michael Wiener, UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights;
Farah Ahmed, Associate Director (India), Asian Law Centre, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne;
James R. Rasband, Hugh W. Colton Professor of Law and Dean, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University;
Donlu Thayer, Managing Editor, International Center for Law and Religion Studies, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University; Case Note Editor, Oxford Journal of Law and Religion.

Co-organizers of the conference included the Oxford Society for Law and Religion; Becket Institute, Oxford; Centre for Christianity and Culture; Regent’s Park College, Oxford; Brunel Law and Religion Research Group; Balliol Interdisciplinary Institute; Bristol Centre for Law and Religion; and FORB Focus.