The Center was invited to prepare a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the Petitioner in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, to be heard during the upcoming fall term of the Supreme Court of the United States. The case is seen by many as the most important religious freedom case to come before the court in decades. Attorneys for the Petitioner were interested in the ... more

The Center has joined with the Community Service Outreach Committee of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society to sponsor a Religious Freedom Discussion Series—a bi-monthly forum led by globally recognized religious freedom experts. The lectures, which are open to the public, take place in Room 472 of the J. Reuben Clark on the BYU campus. They may also be heard via live Webinar or by ... more

28 January.  Four representatives of the International Visitor Leadership Program of Utah Council for Citizen Diplomacy (UCCD) program, Promoting Moderate Voices, a Project for Canada, visited the Center. The visitors were in the United States to discuss ways to promote interfaith dialogue and moderate discussion of religious differences; learn how federal, state, and local government ... more

Effective January 2011, Professor Gary B. Doxey, an Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University, has been named chair of the Center's Development Committee. Professor Doxey replaces Dean Scott Cameron, BYU Law School Associate Dean of External Relations, who had served as Development Committee Chair since summer 2008. The Center expresses its profound thanks for the invaluable service of Dean Cameron, who has served as a member of the Development Committee since its inception in 2006. ... more

The Center has welcomed ten students as Summer Externs for 2011. The students come from the J. Reuben Clark Law School and six other schools from the United States and Germany. This summer's work has included the externs joining forces with several of the 2011 Student Fellows to provide invaluable help in the preparation of the Center's amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court ... more

Invitations are being extended and accepted for participation in the 18th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, sponsored by the International Center for Law and Religion Studies of the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. The theme of this year's Symposium was selected to reflect the 30th anniversary of the issuance of the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, which was proclaimed by resolution of the General Assembly on 25 November 1981. The topic "Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Age: Trends, Challenges, and Practices" will provide an ... more

Professors Cole Durham and Gary Doxey, participated in the conference Religion and the Legislative Regime for the New Dominican Republic, co-sponsored by the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Catholic University of Santo Domingo, and El Consorcio Latinoamericano de Libertad Religioso and held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 24-25 February 2011 ... more

Cole Durham was among the presenters at the Seventeenth Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences held in Rome from Friday 29 April through Tuesday 3 May 2011. The Session, organized under the direction of Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard University Law School and former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, was devoted to the topic Universal Rights in a World of Diversity: The Case of Religious Freedom. "Religious freedom claims the Academy's attention not only because it is central to Catholic thought," notes Professor Glendon, "but because the dilemmas and controversies in that area are illustrative ... more

Professors Cole Durham and Brett Scharffs, along with Marshall Morrise, the Center's Website Development Manager, traveled to India to participate with the Center's honored friend and advisor, Professor Dr. Tahir Mahmood, and other internationally renowned religious freedom scholars in the conference "Religion and Governance in a Secular State," co-sponsored by the Center and the Amity Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and held 9-10 May 2011 at the Amity Campus in Noida. Participants were welcomed ... more

Held 20-21 May 2011 in Kyiv, Ukraine, the conference "Freedom of Religion and Interfaith Dialogue: A Global Dimension and Local Impressions," was co-sponsored by the Coordinating Council of CIS and Baltic States on Theoretical and Practical Religion Studies, the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) of the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, the Department of Religious Studies of the G.S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Association of Researchers of Religion, the ... more

Professor Tore Lindholm was recognized at a symposium, "Multiculturalism and Human Rights", held in his honor on 26 May 2011 in Olso, Norway. The symposium, conducted in English because of the participation of Professor Cole Durham of Brigham Young University and Professor Hurst Hannum of Tufts University, was sponsored by the Human Rights and Diversity Working Group of the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) of the Faculty of Law of the University of Oslo. Noting the 70th birthday of Professor Lindholm – "one of the pillars of the NCHR" – the conference... more

On June 16-18, 2011, Center Director Professor Cole Durham and Associate Director Professor Brett Scharffs participated in a conference on Religion and the Rule of Law in Southeast Asia in Hanoi, Vietnam. The conference was the third in a series of conferences held in Vietnam under the co-sponsorship of the Institute of Religious Studies of the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences (VASS), the Vietnam-U.S.A. Society, the Institute for Global Engagement, and the International Center for Law and ... more

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On 28 June 2011, a coalition of the Vatican and major Protestant and Evangelical churches announced in Geneva new ethical standards for Christian missionary activities. Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for Conduct is the product of five years of consultations among the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, the World Council of Churches, and the World Evangelical Association. "This document is the latest in a series of ... more