Webinar Presented by the International Center for Law and Religion Studies’ Blog
“Talk About: Law and Religion”
7 June 2020
9:00 a.m. (Mountain Time), 17:00 (Central European time)
This webinar will highlight opportunities and successful stories, as well as challenges and failures in advancing religious freedom globally. Five distinguished panelists will share their personal experience of promoting religious freedom on political and legal levels, as well as in communities, education, and academia ranging from Iraq to Eastern Europe. What model of religious freedom should be promoted? What obstacles do religious freedom defenders face in non-democratic regimes and young democracies? How have they interacted with local politicians and other important public actors? How does advocating for religious freedom contribute to a broader human rights agenda and the common good? What are more important—legal and political reforms or religious literacy programs and promoting religious tolerance? What are realistic results to be achieved? Why are international religious freedom programs sometimes ineffective and being criticized?
The Panelists:
Prof. Brett G. Scharffs (Director of the BYU Law School International Center for Law and Religion Studies)
Dr. Ján Figeľ (former EU Special Envoy for Promotion of Freedom of Religion or Belief outside the European Union)
Dr. Mine Yildirim (Head of the Freedom of Belief Initiative & Head of the Eurasia Civil Society Program at Norwegian Helsinki Committee)
Knox Thames (Senior Fellow at the Institute for Global Engagement and Visiting Expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace)
Prof. Elizabeth A. Clark (Associate Director of the BYU Law School International Center for Law and Religion Studies)
The Moderator:
Dr. Dmytro Vovk (Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University / OSCE/ODIHR Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief)
The estimated time of the webinar is 1.5 hours. Each panelist will have up to 7 minutes for a presentation, and then there will be a Q&A session.
Please register in advance for the webinar here.
You can also send your questions in advance at [email protected]