The 21st annual International Law and Religion Symposium will be held 5-7 October 2014 at Brigham Young University Law School in Provo, Utah. More than 65 invited delegates, from more than 40 countries will address the theme “Varieties of Secularism, Religion, and the Law.” Keynote speaker at the Sunday evening opening session will be Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Senator Hatch served as chairman or ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1993 to 2005 and as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee from 1981 to 1987. He currently serves as ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee as on the Board of Directors for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Senator Hatch was the main author of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which protected all religions’ right to build church facilities on private property.

This year’s delegates come from Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, France, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Nigeria, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, and Vietnam.

The delegates will address such topics as “Secularism, Religion, and Social Tension”, “Religious Responses to Secularism”, “Varieties of Secularism”, “The Future of Secularisms”, and “Religious and Theoretical Understandings of Secularism”, as well as Secularism, Religion, and Law from national and regional perspectives.

The Annual Symposium is organized and hosted by the International Center for Law and Religion Studies.