Enemies and Brothers

Elizabeth A. Clark is Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies and the lead organizer of the Center’s Annual International Law and Religion Symposium. The following is an edited summary of her remarks given during the closing session of the 29th Annual Symposium, 4 October 2022.

My Enemy, My Brother

A few years ago, I watched a short documentary called My Enemy, My Brother (2015), which relates a true story that begins with a surprising incident during the Iran-Iraq war.

As most of us remember, the Iran-Iraq war was a devastating and brutal conflict that lasted from 1980 to 1988. It involved chemical weapons, ballistic missiles, a million casualties on both sides, and at least half a million soldiers who became permanently disabled.

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The Fight for Rights of Holocaust Survivors—Transforming a Breach of Basic International Humanitarian Law Rights into Individual Compensations Programs

Avraham Weber is an adjunct lecturer at Philipps–University Marburg and a visiting scholar at CUNY Brooklyn College. The post is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Luxembourg Agreement.

Legalization of the Term Genocide and Individual Claims of Holocaust Survivors

December 1946 brought the United Nations Assembly General to vote on a unanimous resolution, embedding for the first time in history the legal term genocide. Not long after, in December 1948, the UN would adopt the treaty for prevention of genocide. Further important developments in international humanitarian law soon followed, mainly in the form of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted a day later, also in December 1948. This wave of declarations, and the move to create an open, individual rights–based discussion within international law, paved the way for continued recognition of individuals as the subject of international law. This is demonstrated in the First Protocol of the Geneva IV Convention and, of course, later in the Rome Statute, establishing the International Criminal Court.

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Religion’s Roles in Peacebuilding in Ethiopia: Religion and Interfaith Engagement in Times of Conflict and Disaster

Asma Redi Baleker is Director General of the Ministry of Peace of the government of Ethiopia. The following is an edited summary of her remarks at the ICLRS 29th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, 4 October 2022.

Today I will share information about the peacebuilding efforts of religious and interfaith institutions in Ethiopia, as well as policy support from the government. Sharing information about these efforts does not mean all such efforts are completely successful. I share simply to show the efforts and work of religious leaders and institutions in our country.

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