Not My Church: Ukraine’s New Draft Law Dealing with the Ukraine Orthodox Church of (not) the Moscow Patriarchate

Dmytro Vovk is a visiting associate professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and Director of the Centre for the Rule of Law and Religion Studies, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University (Ukraine). An earlier version of this piece was posted on Forum18.

The Russia-Ukraine war, starting with the annexation of Crimea and the military conflict in eastern Ukraine and continuing with Russia’s full-scale invasion, has had a tremendous effect on freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) and other related human rights in the region. Murders, tortures, forced detention, and FoRB violations—including forced displacement of priests and believers, acts of religious discrimination and social hatred to religious minorities inspired and directed by Russian proxies, as well as expropriations of religious properties—have become the reality of the territories occupied by Russia in 2014 and 2022.

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Peacebuilding and the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Jennifer G. Woods is Legal Counsel and the Director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty at the Lake Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. She delivered the following remarks during a panel discussing “Religion’s Roles in Peacebuilding: Reflections from Religious Leaders” at the ICLRS 29th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, 4 October 2022. At that time, she was Associate Director of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Department of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty.

We are living in an increasingly unstable and dangerous world.[1]

Total War

Humanity has, since the middle of the last century, been living in an age of total war. Total war implies the theoretical possibility that, except for the providence of God, earth’s inhabitants could wipe out their entire civilization. Nuclear weapons and biochemical arms of mass destruction are aimed at centers of population. Whole nations and societies are mobilized or targeted for war, and when such war erupts it is carried on with the greatest violence and destruction. The justification of war has become more complex, even though advances in technology make possible greater precision in destroying targets with a minimum of civilian casualties.

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The AMAR Foundation: Remedies to Religious Persecution, Lessons in Peacebuilding

Andrew Methven is The AMAR International Charitable Foundation’s Chief of Staff, based in its London office. The following is an edited summary of his remarks given 3 October 2022 at the ICLRS 29th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, which focused on “Religion’s Roles in Peacebuilding.”

The Work of the AMAR Foundation

The AMAR International Charitable Foundation was founded by our chairman, Baroness Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne, in 1991 to aid the Marsh Arabs, who had been driven by Saddam Hussein to refugee camps in Lebanon and Iran. AMAR’s model was to provide practical help in the form of health care, through Primary Health Care Clinics (PHCCs), and education, through schools. It relied on using Iraqis’ own human capital—doctors and teachers—and raising funds at the market rate for them to run their own clinics and schools in the refugee camps. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, AMAR went on to establish 83 schools and 75 clinics in Baghdad and the Basra Marshes, now mostly handed over to local authorities in a sustainable way. Over the years, AMAR has delivered more than 10.5 million consultations. AMAR has also worked in other countries, including Romania/Ukraine, Somaliland, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Lebanon.

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