International Center for Law and Religion Studies

Mr. Rochow practices from Howard Zelling Chambers, which grew from the chambers that he, with Steve Roder (now Supreme Court Registrar), founded in 1992. He appears at first instance and on appeal in a variety of areas of commercial law, specializing in trade practices and competition matters. Mr. Rochow has had broad commercial litigation experience. He has most frequently appeared in the Federal Court of Australia (Adelaide Registry) and the Supreme Court of South Australia. He also appears in other registries of the Federal Court. Mr. Rochow has also appeared in the High Court of Australia, District Court of South Australia, South Australian Industrial Relations Court and other State and Territorial jurisdictions. He has appeared before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, the Australian Competition, and Consumer Commission, Australian Competition Tribunal and the Delegate for the Registrar of Trade Marks. The range of matters in which he has been and continues to be retained to advise and appear before superior courts include trade practices contraventions, interpretation of statues, construction of contractual terms, restraint of trade, failure to use trade marks bona fide, annual valuation of land, negligent misstatement and pure economic loss, caveats over real property titles, indefeasibility of real property title, shareholder disputes, international product liability, and sale of goods. Additionally, he now holds adjunct professorships at the law schools of Notre Dame Australia and the University of Adelaide. He teaches Jurisprudence, Remedies and Economics and Law. 

Judge Wallace is a native of San Diego, a Navy veteran, and a 1955 graduate of the University of California Boalt Hall School of Law. He has devoted more than fifty years to the law, as partner in a San Diego law firm, as a United States District Judge for the Southern District of California, and as member, and from 1991-1996 Chief Judge, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Since assuming Senior Judge status in 1996, Judge Wallace has spent much of his time traveling every continent of the world to promote the rule of law in developing countries. A prolific writer, lecturer, and teacher, he has taught courses in judicial administration in the United States and throughout the world and has consulted with more than fifty judiciaries worldwide. He developed the concept of the Conference of Chief Justices of Asia and the Pacific and originated the idea and developed the concept for the American Inns of Court. Throughout his long and distinguished career of professional, church, and community service, Judge Wallace has received a great many honors, recognitions, and awards, including the 2005 Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award, generally regarded as "the most prestigious honor conferred on a member of the federal judiciary," and the 2009 Distinguished Service Award for Religious Freedom from the International Center for Law and Religion Studies.

Kevin J Worthen began serving as the 13th president of Brigham Young University on May 1, 2014. He previously served as BYU’s advancement vice president and as dean of its J. Reuben Clark Law School, where he was the Hugh W. Colton Professor of Law. President Worthen was born in Dragerton (now East Carbon–Sunnyside), Utah, and grew up in nearby Price. After serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Monterrey, Mexico, he earned an associate degree at the College of Eastern Utah (now USU Eastern). He then received his bachelor of arts in political science and his juris doctorate from BYU. Following his graduation from the BYU Law School, President Worthen served as a law clerk to Judge Malcolm R. Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Byron R. White of the U.S. Supreme Court. After three years of private practice with the law firm of Jennings, Strouss & Salmon in Phoenix, Arizona, President Worthen joined the BYU Law School faculty in 1987. In 1994, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Chile Law School in Santiago. He has published extensively on a number of legal topics, with particular emphasis on federal Indian law and the rights of indigenous peoples. 

Hovhannes Hovhannisyan received his B.A. in Theology from Yerevan State University, Faculty of Theology in 2000, and his M.A. in 2002. He has also graduated from the Public Administration School of Armenia in 2002. He did his Ph.D in June 2007 and the theme of his thesis was "The reformation movement in the Armenian Apostolic Church from 1901-1906." He is currently working in the Department of the History of Religions, Faculty of Theology, Yerevan State University as Associated Professor and at the Center of Civilization and Cultural Studies in Yerevan State University. He is currently also the Executive Director of SKIL Foundation. He is author of more than 30 academic articles published in some foreign and local journals. In 2012-13 he was a visiting fellow at Yale University under the Faculty Development Program. He is involved in international projects on dialogue and religious pluralism. He has participated in several international conferences and inter-religious seminars in the USA, China, Turkey, Georgia, and Russia.

Michael Casey studied art and law at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, before completing a Ph.D in sociology at La Trobe University, Melbourne. He is the author of Meaninglessness: The Solutions of Nietzsche, Freud and Rorty (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), and editor of Cardinal George Pell’s book God and Caesar: Selected Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society (Catholic University of America Press, 2007). He has also written a number of articles on culture, society and democracy. Dr. Casey works for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, and from 1997 to 2014 was Private Secretary to Cardinal Pell, who was Archbishop of Sydney until February of this year.

Bishop Peter Andrew Comensoli. He was baptised at St John Vianney Church, Fairy Meadow, the parish in which he would receive all his sacraments of Christian Initiation, as well as priestly Ordination. Bishop Comensoli was educated by the Good Samaritan Sisters at St John Vianney's Primary School, and by the Marist Fathers at St Paul's College, Bellambi. Following school, he worked for four years in the banking sector, while studying Commerce at Wollongong University. Bishop Comensoli commenced his studies for the priesthood at St Patrick's College, Manly in 1986. He was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Wollongong in 1992. During his time in the diocese he served as Assistant Priest and then Administrator in a number of parishes. He was Diocesan Chancellor for six years and a member of various clergy and diocesan committees.

Bishop Comensoli holds a Bachelor of Theology (1989) and a Bachelor of Sacred Theology (1991) from the Catholic Institute of Sydney, where he is now a sessional lecturer. He holds a Licentiate of Sacred Theology (STL) in moral theology from the Accademia Alfonsiana (2000), a Master of Letters (M.Litt) in moral philosophy from the University of St Andrews (2007), and a Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D) in theological ethics from Edinburgh University (2011). In April 2011, Bishop Comensoli was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, and ordained to the Episcopate in June 2011 at St Mary's Cathedral. In the Archdiocese of Sydney, Bishop Comensoli is Episcopal Vicar for Life, Marriage and Family, Chair of the Sydney Archdiocesan Catholic Schools (SACS) Board, and Parish Priest of Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish, Watsons Bay, amongst other ministerial activities. At a national level, he is currently a member of the Bishops' Commissions for Church Ministry, for Evangelisation and for Mission and Faith Formation.

Professor Neil Foster is an Associate Professor at Newcastle University, Faculty of Business and Law. He has designed the curriculum for and taught one of the first Law and Religion credit courses in Australia. He has a strong interest in human rights, freedom of religion, and same-sex marriage. His principal teaching and research interest is the law of Torts. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Torts Law Journal, and was co-author of the 6th edition of major Australian torts textbook, Torts: Cases and Commentary: Luntz & Hambly as well as the 10th edition of Fleming's Law of Torts. He has just published the book Workplace Health and Safety Law in Australia and has taught a course in Workplace Health and Safety Law at the University since 1996.Professor Foster holds two bachelor's degrees, one in Theology from the Australian College of Theology and the other in Law from the University of New South Wales. He also received an LLM the University of Newcastle. His LLM thesis related to the individual legal responsibility of company officers for OHS breaches committed by companies (in civil law, general criminal law such as manslaughter, and specific OHS laws). He is continuing research on the interaction between tort law and OHS responsibilities, particularly the impact of newer models of OHS regulation on the classic workplace injury tort remedy provided by the tort of "breach of statutory duty." His other teaching interests are in the law of Property and Intellectual Property. He is also a great ally in interfaith initiatives such as the Deloitte Study.

The Honorable Stephen Wade, MLC, LLB, B.Ec., worked in corporate governance and on a range of boards before being appointed to the Legislative Council of the Parliament of South Australia in May 2006 as a Liberal Party member. Stephen has served as the minority group spokesperson in a range of portfolios (known as shadow ministries) since April 2007, and served as the Shadow Attorney-General (2010 to 2014). In June 2014, he was appointed Shadow Minister for Health, Aging, and the Arts. 

Dr Nigel Zimmermann is Private Secretary to the Most Rev Peter Comensoli, Apostolic Administrator in the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney. Nigel is also a Lecturer in Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia (Sydney). Originally from Brisbane, he spent some years in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he completed his doctorate and was subsequently awarded a Wingate Scholarship in the UK (2011-13). Nigel is author of Levinas and Theology (T&T Clark Bloomsbury, 2013). As well as questions around religious liberty, his research interests include moral theology, systematic theology, continental philosophy, Karol Wojtyla, Emmanuel Levinas, religion and society, interfaith and ecumenical dialogue.

Luigi Braga is a former professor in the School of Business and Accounting, and Law School of the Federal University of Sergipe and in the Business College of Sergipe. Currently, he is a professor in the graduate programs of the Brazil Adventist University, FADMINAS, IAP and IAENE. He is a lawyer, professor, specialized in commercial law with a graduate degree in Protection of Diffuse, Collective, and Homogeneous Individual Rights. He is getting his master´s degree in Tax Law at the Catholic University of Brasília (UCB-DF). He has published a work on the Third Sector and Taxation published by Editora Forense. He also acts in the position of general counsel of all charitable entities of social assistance connected to the Adventist Organization in South America.

Aroldo Cavalcante is a member of the Law and Religious Freedom Committee. He is affiliated with the Bar Association of Pernambuco and Ceara, Brazil, a Managing Partner of Barreto Cavalcante Advogados, and a former City Attorney. He holds an LL.M in Administrative Law and a Bachelor degree from UFC Law School.

Acyr de Gerone earned a law degree from PUC / PR and did postgraduate work in Third Sector Law at the Universidade Positivo. He participated in the collective work of the Third Sector Law (FORUM, OAB / PR, 2008) Journal of Law and the Third Sector RDTS (FORUM, 2007) coordinated by Prof. Dr. Gustavo Justin de Oliveira. He has been a supervisor for two papers and has been on the defense panel of scientific articles (2009, 2010 and 2011) as well as a visiting professor (2011) with the Specialization Course in Methodologies to Combat Violence Against Children and Adolescents PUC / PR. He is the chairman of the Law and Religious Freedom of the OAB / PR, a member of the Committee on Third Sector Law of OAB / PR, and a member of the Brazilian IBATS – Brazilian Institute of Lawyers of the Third Sector. He is currently president of the Christian Institute of Development, a member of the coordinating Paranaense Evangelical Social Action Network (REPAS), a Senior Pastor of the Evangelical Church of the Day of the Redemption, and a member of the Bible Society of Brazil state directory (PR). He has professional experience in the law of the third sector and civil areas. He has delivered lectures in courses and other events of the Third Sector. He is a lawyer acting in defense of churches and Christian leaders as well as an adviser and legal counselor for associations and religious organizations throughout Brazil.

Odacyr Prigol is a founding member of the Brazillian affiliate of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation.  He also currently serves on the Commission for Religious Freedom of the Brazil Bar Association in the Curitiba area. He is the founding partner of Prigol Advogados Associados.

Uziel Santana is currently the President of the National Association of Evangelicals Jurists (ANAJURE), a legal organization that represents Evangelical communities and promotes religious freedom in Brazil. He is a tenured professor at the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS) and a visiting professor and researcher at the Facultad de Derecho,Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA-FD). He holds a Master’s Degree in Law from the Federal University of Pernambuco and received a Ph.D. in Legal History from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His research explores “Biblical Law” and its influence on the formation of contemporaty legal systems. He has authored numerous articles for both academic and popular audiences, and recently published a book titled A Christian Right in the Bent Country. He is a proud member of both the Inter-American Federation of Christian Jurists and the Alliance Defending Freedom. He is married to theologian Ana Helena. Together, they have two children.

Dr. James Christie is Professor of Whole World Ecumenism and Dialogue Theology and former Dean of the Faculty of Theology of The University of Winnipeg. He is a life-long ecumenist and a pioneer in dialogue theology. In July 2010, he was appointed Director of The Ridd Institute for Religion and Global Policy in the Global College of The University of Winnipeg.

Dr. Christie has practiced congregational ministry in Montreal, New York State, Toronto and Ottawa, and has also worked in teaching and academic administration. He served on the Emmanuel College Council in Toronto; developed and taught short courses for Queen's Theological College and the United Church of Canada in Faith, Culture and Politics; and designed and taught the first Queen’s course on Science, Religion and Society: An Emerging Dialogue. In 2003, he was Theologian to the Justice Department of Canada Forum on Genetic Futures, and participated in the first Canadian Church Leaders’ Study Mission on HIV/AIDS to East Africa.

In the wider church, Dr. Christie has held several senior positions, including Chairperson of the Presbytery of York, President of the Toronto Conference, and Interim General Secretary for Ecumenism and Interfaith Dialogue for the United Church of Canada. He has represented the United Church on the Faith and Witness Commission of the Canadian Council of Churches, was a long-time director of both the Christian-Jewish Dialogue of Toronto and the Christian-Jewish Dialogue of the National Capital Region, and represented the Protestant world at the 49th World Eucharistic Congress of the Roman Catholic Church. In 2009, both York and Winnipeg Presbyteries nominated him as a candidate for Moderator of the United Church of Canada.

Dr. Christie is Past President of the Canadian Council of Churches, and served as Secretary General of the 2010 Religious Leaders’ Summit, a parallel and complementary gathering of world religious leaders coinciding with the G8 political leaders’ summits. In 2009, he was appointed to the steering committee of the Interreligious Roundtable of Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation. An internationalist, Dr. Christie is a leader in the NGO movement for global democracy, UN reform and human rights, chairing the Council of the World Federalist Movement/Institute for Global Policy (a 2002 Nobel Peace Prize nominee for leadership in the International Criminal Court Treaty).

Qiu Fengxia has a Master’s Degree in Religious Studies from Peking University. She is the Deputy Division Director and an associate Professor at the Center for Religious Research. She has also been engaged in Buddism and Taoism research for a long time

Russell Leu is a special counsel in the Corporate Practice Group of SheppardMullin, residing in the firm's Beijing office. His clients are primarily located in China and the Pacific region. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Leu was the managing attorney and Chief Representative of the Beijing office of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP and also established his own law practice in the state of Hawaii. He is currently the Co-Chair of the China Committee of the International Section of the American Bar Association and has served as the Associate Dean and Professor of Law at the Law School of Beijing Foreign Studies University. Leu received his B.A. from University of Massachusetts in 1977 and JD from University of San Francisco in 1984.  Following his graduation, he clerked for two United States Bankruptcy Judges, the Honorable Lloyd King and the Honorable Cameron Wolfe.

Dr. Wan Meng is currently the dean of the law school at Beijing Foreign Studies University and a visiting professor and researcher at universities around the world including the University of Hawaii, the University of New South Wales, Wuhan University Law School, and Zhongnan University of Economics and Law. He also serves as Expert Counsel to the General Office of the National People's Congress of China and as an arbitrator for the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC),  and the China Maritime Arbitration Commission (CMAC). He previously served as Chief Judge and President of the Wuhan Maritime Court and Head of the Economic and Commercial Division of the Hubei High Court. His research interests include international business law, arbitration, commercial law, international law, and comparative judicial systems. 

André M.K. Mazyambo was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo where he did his primary, secondary, and university studies. He finished his law degree at the University of Kinshasa in 1983 and was admitted to the Kinshasa Bar the following year. In 1991, he went to Spain to study at the University of Valladolid, where he specialized in European Law and wrote his doctoratorial thesis on international law, with a focus on human rights. He graduated with his Ph.D in 1997. Since then, he has been a Professor of International Law at the University of Kinshasa. He is the author of more than twenty academic articles.

Prof. Dr. Katshung Joseph Yav is a Professor of Law at the University of Lubumbashi, a Legal practitioner (Attorney at Law), and International Consultant based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He is the founder and Managing Partner of a Consulting and Law Firm in the DRC known as Yav & Associates LLP. He has also served for five years as the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights, Good Governance, Peace, and Conflict Resolution at University of Lubumbashi in DRC. He holds a Ph.D in Law from the University of Lubumbashi; a Master's degree of Law from the University of Pretoria in South Africa; a Master's in Law from the University of Lubumbashi in DRC; and a Diploma in Transitional Justice (ICTJ-IJR/Cape Town). He has published several books and articles in such fields as law, human rights, religion, and justice.

Dr Vanja-Ivan Savić is a Croatian national. He graduated from University of Zagreb Faculty of Law cum laude, where he obtained his first law degree. Later he obtained Master of Science in Law Degree and Ph.D. at the same University.  He was a British Chevening Scholar at The University of Edinburgh in 2005. As a researcher he worked as International Fellow at DePaul University’s International Human Rights Law Institute in Chicago in 2010. His area of expertise includes Legal Theory, Theory of Law and State, Corporate Criminal Law, Law and Religion and International Human Rights. Law and Religion is of his primary interest and in that respect he participated at many lectures and conferences held in Croatia and abroad. He attended Harvard University Law School’s Program of Instruction for Lawyers and later conference held at their Islamic Legal Studies Program. He also participated at many religion themed conferences: Cracow, Poland; Cluj-Napoca Romania; Zagreb, Croatia and London, UK. In 2013 he was Visiting Research Associate at the University of Adelaide Research Unit for the Study of Society, Law and Religion. Currently he holds positions of Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Zagreb and Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University’s Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies where he conducts research connected with law, religion and cohabitation in complex societies. Dr. Savić is promoting the development of a Law and Religion curriculum in his home county.

Mariano Germán Mejia Jiménez was appointed as President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Dominican Republic by the National Council of Magistrates in 2011. Prior to his elevation to the bench, he served as the republic's Attorney General and as the Director of the Instituto Dominicano de las Telecomunicaciones. He has served on various committees responsible for updating the national zoning codes and civil procedure. President Germán is an esteemed professor and eminent legal doctrinarian. His book, Vías de Ejecución, accurately and delicately analyzes the various paths leading to capital punishment.

Jean-Bernard Bolvin  is a French National and has been working for the last few years in the Human Rights and Democracy Directorate of the European External Action Service (EEAS) – the EU's newest service (established in January 2011) dedicated to the EU's foreign and security policy. He is currently in charge of human right issues in the Middle East as well as freedom of religion or belief worldwide. He has been actively involved in the drafting of the EU Guidelines on Freedom of Religion or Belief adopted by the EU in June 2013.  M. Bolvin's previous experience includes more than eight years in the French Public Service, where he notably held advisor positions for different ministers (Minister of State for Victim’s Rights, Spokesperson of the Government, Minister of Culture, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights). He has also been posted in Yemen (2010-2011) as head of a democratic governance and security cooperation project. Before joining the EEAS, Bolvin was advisor to the French Ambassador at large for Human Rights. Between December 2000 and June 2001, M. Bolvin was assigned to the UNMIK in Pristina, in the Department of Judicial Affairs (criminal legal section), while performing his military service. M. Bolvin graduated in Law from Poitiers University, after obtaining a diploma in European Law Studies from the University of Cambridge (Erasmus). He also holds a post-graduate diploma (DEA) in European Comparative Public Law from Paris-La Sorbonne University. 

Jean-Paul Willaime, born in 1947, is the Research Director at l’École Pratique des Hautes Études, Department of Religious Studies, Sorbonne, Paris. He is a member of the Group Societies, Religions, Laïcities (GSRL, Research Centre EPHE-CNRS) and former President of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion (ISSR). His fields of research in sociology of religion are: Protestantism, ecumenism, religion and education, European religions, democracy and religious pluralism, secularism, and sociological theories of religion.

Effie Fokas is a Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), where she leads the European Research Council-funded research program on "Directions in Religious Pluralism in Europe: Examining Grassroots Mobilizations in the Shadow of the European Court of Human Rights' Religious Freedom Jurisprudence" (Grassrootsmobilise). She recently completed a European Commission-funded study of "Pluralism and Religious Freedom in Orthodox Countries in Europe" (PLUREL). Fokas was founding Director of the London School of Economics Forum on Religion and is currently Research Associate of the LSE Hellenic Observatory. Her publications include Islam in Europe: Diversity, Identity and Influence, co-edited with Aziz Al-Azmeh, and Religious America, Secular Europe?, co-authored with Peter Berger and Grace Davie. 

Selvin Boangeres García Velásquez is a Guatamalan Congressman, attorney, and notary public.  He graduated from the University of San Carlos of Guatamala with a bachelor's degree in law and received a master's degree in development from Rafael Landivar University.  From 2003 to 2011, he served as mayor of the city of Pachalum, president of the commonwealth's "Convergence of Eight," and President of the National Association of Municipalities. During this time, Congressman Garcia received numerous national and international awards for his public service including the "Hemisphere's Best Municipal Practices Award" presented by the Office of the Mayor of Miami, Florida and was runner-up for the Iberoamerican Digital Cities Award.  He has also been inducted into the Order of Manuel Colom Argueta by the National Association of Municipalities. He was elected to congress in 2012 as a member of the Creo Party and currently serves on a number of committees including the Municipal Affairs Committee, the Housing Committee, and the Commission on Indigenous Peoples.

Raphael Trotman has served in the Parliament of Guyana since 1998 and was elected Speaker of the National Assemby of Guyana in 2012. In 2005, he co-founded the Alliance for Change, currently the country's third largest political party, and was nominated as that party's presidential candidate in 2006.  During his tenure in the legislature, he has served on the Foreigh Affairs, Constitutional Reform, and Standing Order committees.  He is also the former Vice President of the Guyana Bar Association. Speaker Trotman holds a master's degree in international relations from Tufts University and is a Harvard-trained and certified mediator and alternative dispute resolution specialist.

For over thirty years, Jorge Ramón Hernández Alcerro has dedicated his life to serving his native country of Honduras.  In January, he was appointed as Coordinator General, and has previously served as a Representitive in Congress and Minister of the Interior and Justice under President Ricardo Maduro.  He has also represented his nation as Ambassador to the United Nations, the Central American Representative at the Inter-American Development Bank, a Judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, a Magistrate on Central American Court of Justice, and, most recently, as the Ambassador to the United States of America. 

Tamás Lukacs was born in Eger, Hungary. After his mandatory service in the military he was admitted to the ELTE Faculty of Law, from where he graduated in 1976. From 1976 until 1990 he worked in the community of Eger Lawyers, first as a clerk and then as a lawyer. In 1989, he was one of the founders of the KDNP political party and later (1990-1991) Vice President of the party, then the president of the Committee of the National Bureau. In 1990 he was elected as a Representative of Parliament and Member of the National Budget Committee, and Vice President of Human Rights, Minorities and Religious Affairs Committee. In 1996, he was elected as one of the chairmen in the presidency of the Hungarian Radio Co. He was also a lecturer at the Faculty of Law PPKE University and taught media ethics. In the 2006 parliamentary elections he gained a national list seat. Since May 2006 he has been a member of the Cultural and Press Committee. In the 2010 elections, he won a mandate from the Fidesz-KDNP alliance from the Heves county regional list.  Since May 2010 he has been president of the National Human Rights, Minorities, Civil and Religious Affairs Committee. 

Dr. Joseph E. David has held many positions, including Senior Lecturer at Sapir Academic College and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Research Fellow at Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. His research interests include Law and Religion, Comparative Jurisprudence, Legal Theory and Legal History. Dr. David is currently working on perceptions of kinship and incest in medieval thought (mainly within the Karaite and the Eastern Churches legal writings). Some of his publications include The State Rabbinate: Election, Separation and Freedom of Expression, The Family and the Political: The Political Meaning of the Family in a Liberal Society, Toleration within Judaism, and Between Logos and Nomos – Law and Theology in Medieval Jewish Thought.

Pasquale Annicchino is a Research Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. He is also a member of the EUI Ethics Committee. He received his Ph.D. in Law from the University of Siena where he also graduated in law summa cum laude in 2006. In 2004, he studied as an Erasmus student at the School of Law of Charles IV University in Prague (Czech Republic). From August 2004 to September 2006, he studied at the European Academy of Legal Theory in Brussels, where he obtained a double degree (LL.M./D.E.A.). In 2007 he was a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Law and Religion of the Emory University Law School in Atlanta. In 2009, he recieved an LLM in European Public Law at University College London where he also served as Editor-in-Chief of the UCL Human Rights Review. Pasquale is also a fellow in Constitutional Law and Comparative Constitutional Law at the Department of Political Science of the University of Salerno. He serves as book review editor for Religion and Human Rights: an International Journal and is a member of the editorial board of Quaderni di Diritto e Politica Ecclesiastica published by Il Mulino. His main research interests include the following: Legal Theory, Law and Religion, EU Law, Religion, and Politics.

Alessandro Ferrari is an Associate Professor in the Department of Law, Economy, and Cultures, at the Università degli Studi dell’Insubria. He did his Ph.D at the University of Milan and at the University of Paris XI. His main research interests are Church and State issues in Italy and West Europe; French laïcité; Secularism and Civil Religion; Democracy and Religion; Islam in Italy and in Europe; Comparative Law of Religions. He is a member of CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) Research Group on "Sociologie des Religions et de la Laicite," the  International Migration, Integration, and Social Cohesion Network, and the editorial board of Dalmon.

Andrea Pin is a Senior Lecturer in Constitutional and Comparative Law at the University of Padua. He holds a Ph.D from the University of Turin. He has clerked at the Italian Constitutional Court since 2011. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He has authored two books, edited two books, and translated two additional books into Italian. His fields of study cover law and religion, comparative perspectives on human rights, comparative federalism, and constitutional interpretation.

Makoto Arai is a Professor of Law at Chuo University in Tokyo, Japan (Tama Campus). Professor Arai is a graduate of the Faculty of Law at Keio University and received his JSD from Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. He was formerly Dean of the Law School at Tsukuba University. His research interests include the use of the trust system in an aging society and the encouragement of better utilization of adult guardianship. His major works include Trust Law; Visions of the Trust Law System; and Visions of the Adult Guardianship Law System. Professor Arai has also authored numerous articles and is particularly noted for his work in comparative law. He received the Humboldt Research Award in 2006, and was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2010. He is also the president of the Japan Adult Guardianship Association and a standing director of the Japan Association for the Law of Trust. He also currently serves as Chairman of the Religious Juridical Persons Council, a government council within the Ministry of Education.

Byung-Sun Oh is a Professor Emeritus of Jurisprudence and International Law at Sogang University Law School in Seoul, South Korea. He has worked at Sogang University for the past 30 years, and served as Dean of the law school there. His research interests include the areas of jurisprudence and international law. He served as President of both the Korean Association of Legal Philosophy and the Korean Society of International Law, respectively.  He obtained an LLB from Seoul National University College of Law, an LLM from Columbia University Law School, and a Ph.D from Edinburgh University Faculty of Law. 

Lee Koua Sayaxang is the Permanent Acting President of the Lao Front for National Construction of the Vientiane Capital City, a position he has held for nearly a decade. Before that he served as Deputy to the Front's President from 2001 to 2005. An educator by profession, for over twenty years he served as first Assistant Director and then Director of the Phonxay Secondary School in the Xaysettha District of Laos. From 1971 to 1974, he worked as a high school teacher at the Long Cheng Secondary School in the Xaysomboun Province. In 1982, he graduated with a B.S. in Education from Dongdok University.

Mr. Sayaxang is married, and the proud father of six children.

Boutsady Siphilom has served as the Deputy Director of Vientiane Capital Home Affairs with in the Department of Home Affairs of Laos since 2012. She was previously an Educational Administrator.

Reverend Henry Sandanam, the founder and President of Association of social services and Community Development of Gombak District, Selangor (PSPK), was born and brought up in Penang, Malaysia. He moved from his hometown Penang to Kuala Lumpur where he felt called to set up a community service which would concentrate on empowering lives of many people in need. Today, PSPK has six centers providing assistance, education, training (tailoring, computers, etc.), therapy, and basic counseling to the needy and challenged. Rev. Henry Sandanam is responsible for the overall management of PSPK; stretching from the strategic direction and planning, to fund-raising and projects, to implementations of programs and services.

Manuel Acosta is currently Chief Director of the National Agrarian Registry (RAN) in Mexico. He has been a Federal Deputy in the LXI Legislative Congress of Mexico, a federal deputy in the state of Sonora, Mexico, and was previously the President of the Human Rights Commission, State Congress of Sonora.

Jorge Lee is the Founding Partner and Director General of Lee and Associates, a high-profile Mexican law firm specializing in ecclesiastical law.  During his career, he has helped incorporate more than one thousand religious associations and various Christian denominations. He continues to serve as the legal representative of many of them.  He is the author of various publications including three books, Juridican Manual for Religious Associations; Commentary on the Law of Religious Associations and Public Law; and Mexican Ecclesiastical Law: A Perspective from its Practical Application.  He is also a founding member of the Inter-American Federation of Christian Jurists (FIAJC) and served as President of the Latin American Network of Christian Lawyers (LANCL). Currently, he is the Director of Impulso 18, a non-governmental organization dedicated to defending freedom of religion and belief in Mexico.  He also serves as President of the Commission for Religious Freedom and Equality of both FIAJC and the LANCL.  Mr. Lee received his bachelor's degree in Law from Intercontinental University (Mexico).

Alberto Patiño Reyes holds a Ph.D in Law (with outstanding honors) from Madrid Complutense University. He is currently a Professor of Law and Religion in the law department of the Iberoamericana University in Mexico City. He is the author of several articles exploring the interaction of law and religion in Mexico, and recently published a book titled Religious Freedom and Hispanic American Principles of Cooperation. He is a frequent speaker at both national and international Congresses related to religious freedom and a regular member of the Latin American Consortium of Religious Freedom, the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS),  and the National Association of Law Doctorates.

Victor Hugo Sánchez Zebadúa was born in the state of Chiapas and graduated from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) with a degree in International Relations. He also took courses on "State, Society, and Churches," taught by the National Institute of Public Administration and the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences. Mr. Sánchez has worked as Head of Declarations of Origin and Heritage and as Registration Deputy of Sub-Heritage Registration. He was Director of Attention to Religious Associations, and currently is working as a Sub-Secretary of Religious Affairs of the State Government of Chiapas.

Vicente L. Segú is Director of “La Fundacion”, a foundation that advocates family values and religious liberty in Mexico. He has a master’s degree in Social Responsibility, and he has worked with many organizations to promote respect for the life starting at conception, the rights of the unborn, and religious liberty.  His work with various civil groups resulted in the introduction of an amendment to the Mexican Constitution to establish a right to life beginning at conception.  

For more than fourteen years, Munkhzul Khurelbaatar has worked to promote human rights in her native country of Mongolia, where she currently serves as the Head of Administration and Cooperation of the National Human Rights Commission. Prior to her appointment to this position, she headed the Commission’s Education Division and worked as the Coordinator of Gender Development and Legal Reform Unit for the National Center Against Violence. She was instrumental in both drafting the Law Combatting Domestic Violence and lobbying Members of Parliament to pass it. She also frequently organizes human rights trainings and promotions for law enforcement officers and the general public.  She is the author of various leaflets and publications and is the recipient of numerous governmental awards for her public service, including the Medal for the 90th Anniversary of the People’s Revolution. Munkhzul graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from University of Humanities in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia in 1997 and with a law degree from the National University of Mongolia in 2007. In 1997, she served as secretary to the Court of Songino Khairhan District.

Deputy Director of the Department of Immigration since April 2014.  From 2007 into 2014, he was a senior level official in Mongolia's Anti-Corruption Authority.  From 1996 to 2007, he was a senior detective with the Department of Investigation of the Mongolian Police Authority. 

Choinorov Sunrevtsoodol was born in 1964, in the Uvurkhangai Province, Mongolia. Choinorov graduated from the Odessa Lomonosov Technological Institute of Food Industry in Odessa, Ukraine. Ms. Choinorov worked as a district governor of 18th Khoroo, Songino Khairkhan district of the city of Ulaanbaatar; the Director of Social Welfare Service of Songino Khairkhan District of Ulaanbaatar; and currently serves as the Director of the Center of Employment Services of Mongolia. 

Femi Falana is a Human rights activist, a Member of the West African Bar Association, and an Honorary member of the American Bar Association. He is also the former President of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers and the author of many publications.

Akinola Ibidapo-Obe is an Associate Professor at the University of Lagos in Nigeria. Prior to his appointment to the faculty, he served as Acting Dean at the University of Ado-Ekiti, Faculty of Law; Acting Head of the University of Lagos; and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ojoo, Lagos. He was also a Visiting Professor at Southern University in Baton Rouge; a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in Nigeria; and Vice-President of the Network of University Legal Aid Institutions (NULAI). He is currently a member of the African Society of International and Comparative Law, the Nigerian Association of Law Teachers, and the Nigerian Society of International Law.

Tore Lindholm is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo and a board member of the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief. He also serves on the Human Rights Committee of the Church of Norway. His research interests focus on (1) the grounds for embracing universal human rights and, in particular, the  freedom of religious and non-religious conviction; and (2) the two-way traffic between human rights and religions (in particular with respect to Islam). He co-edited, with Cole Durham and Bahia Tahzib-Lie, the volume Facilitating Freedom of Religion or Belief: A Deskbook (Brill 2004), which is now published in Indonesian and Russian translations, with a Chinese translation under way. Lindholm co-initiated and sat on the steering committee of the Norwegian Research Council Ethics Program from 1990 to 2001. He also co-edited a book on An-Naíimís Islamic reform thinking, Islamic Law Reform and Human Rights: Challenges and Rejoinders, and with Cora Alexa Døving and Sidra Shami produced Religious Commitment and Social Integration: Are There Significant Links? A Pilot Study of Muslims in the Oslo Area with a Family Background from Pakistan (2010). He is author of The Cross-Cultural Legitimacy of Human Rights: Prospects for Research; Article 1: A new beginning? in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Common Standard of Achievement; Ethical Justification of Universal Rights Across Normative Divides in Universal Ethics; and Perspectives and Proposals from Scandinavian Scholars.

Mr. Lobos is an attorney and notary public  and currently serves as the Deputy Minister of Worship in the Paraguayan Ministry of Education and Culture.  He has worked in the government for 23 years holding positions that include  Actuary within the Administrative Court, Tax Instructor, Judge, Prosecuting Coordinator, Acting Director of the Directorate General of Legal Counsel, and Legal Adviser to the Director General of Inclusive Education. 

Guillermo García-Montúfar has a law degree from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, and he was admitted to Bar of Lima in 1982. He holds a master's degree in Civil and Commercial Law from the Universidad San Martín de Porres and a LLM in the U.S. Legal System from the University of Wisconsin School of Law. He recevied training in negotiation, mediation, and conciliation from Harvard Law School. A Professor at the University of Lima, he is a specialist in property rights, contracts, and guarantees. He has developed specialized legal consulting programs for the formalization of property in Peru and other countries such as El Salvador, Haiti, and Egypt. He is also an Arbitrator of the Lima Chamber of Commerce and American Chamber of Commerce of Peru (AmCham) and the conciliatory court. He has advised the Ministry of Justice on issues of reconciliation and mediation. He provides expert legal advice in administrative law and civil law, among others, the World Bank and the Instituto Libertad y Democracia (ILD).

Dr. Julio Rosas has always been known for his commitment to serve. He is a congressman and a member of the commission of Justice and Human Rights.  As a politician and evangelical pastor, he has worked and is currently working in defense of Human Rights. Among other things, he has been part of a “Defensa Civil" committee and project director of “One Hope”, which promotes education based on values and religious principles.  

Frezia Sissi Villavicencio Rios is an expert in judicial strategic management, and a doctoral candidate at the University of Sevilla in Spain. She graduated with a master’s degree in Procedural Law from La Universidad Nacional de San Marcos, and with a bachelors degree in law from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. She has also received certifications in UPC Quality Management and Public Administration from the Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas. Frezia is a pioneer in the application and implementation of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 2014 in the Superior Court of Huaura, where she served as Judge of the Research School for five years. She has conducted research and published various articles in the Editora Gaceta Jurídica on various subjects. As a consultant for USAID, she has conducted research and produced various reports on the judiciary, where she formulated guidelines for the management of new judicial offices and drafted regulations for the formation of electronic files.

Maria Cecilia de los Reyes is the training director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).  In this capacity, she has worked hard to raise the industry’s ethical standards in her country, training novice and veteran journalists alike in professional ethics. She has also co-authored numerous books on "Money Politics" – the practice of buying votes during elections. Through this research she has exposed pervasive problems in the Philippine political system, highlighting the prevalence of graft and corruption.

Malou C. Mangahas is the executive director and co-founder of the Phillipines Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) and the current host of Investigative Documentaries, a television news program that airs every Thursday night at 8 PM on GMA News TV. As executive director of PCIJ, she has lobbied for the ratification of the Freedom of Information Act and reforms in the judiciary. Ms. Mangahas graduated cum laude with a degree in journalism from the University of Philiipines-Diliman.  While there, she served as the editor-in-chief of the Phillipine Collegian from 1979 to 1980 and chairperson of the College Editors Guild of the Philipines. Both media organizations wrote articles critical of the administration of then President Ferdinand Marcos, which led to her incarceration for three and a half months in a prison facility in Taguig City. After she was released, she was elected chairperson of the UPD Student Council.  She was the first chairperson elected since it had been dissolved six years prior at the height of martial law.  After graduation, she became a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Ms. Mangahas has worked for various newspapers and publications throughout her career. During the late 1990s, she became editor-in-chief of The Manila Times. During her tenure there, the Estrada administration shut the paper down after it printed an article exposing corruption in the government.  The newpaper's closure sparked backlash from media outlets and opposition groups throughout the country.  After her stint at The Manila Times, Mangahas worked briefly as a radio commentator, the producer of the television show Debate with Mare at Pare, and co-host of Palaban. She later became the first editor-in-chief of GMANews.tv and President for Research  and Content Development of GMA News and Public Affairs.

Henryk Hoffmann completed his undergraduate studies at the Pedagogical University of Opole, majoring in education. In 1975, he began his postraduate studies completinga study of religion and ethics at Wrocław University, Faculty of Philosophy. In October 1977, he started working at the Institute of Religious Studies at the Jagiellonian University in the Department of History of Religion and successively completed several steps in his academic career. In 1985, he defended his doctoral thesis in religious studies  and was appointed to the position of Assistant Professor. In 2004, he defended his dissertation at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Jagiellonian University History of Polish Study of Religions 1873-1939. On the basis of this work, as well as academic achievements he was awarded a doctoral degree. In September 2010, he was appointed Professor at the Jagiellonian University, he was appointed Head of the Department of the History of Religions, Institute of Religious Studies and as Chief Editor of the magazine Nomos. Journal for the Study of Religions the following year.

Anna Ksiazek is a Ph.D candidate at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. She completed her undergraduate studies at Krakowian School of Tourism and then received a master's degree in religion studies at Jagiellonian University. Since then, she has been an active participant and lecturer at many international conferences. Her research interests include the history of Islam, the phenomenology of religion, and religious dialogue. She has been the Executive Editor of Nomos: Journal for the Study of Religions since 2009.

Oleg Yurevich Goncharov is a member of the Council for Cooperation with Religious Organizations under the President of the Russian Federation, a member of the Protestant Churches of Russia coordinating council, and a Member of the MARS organization, he is also the former Public Affairs Director of the Seventh-day Adventist church.  He graduated with honors from the Department of Religious Studies of the Russian Academy of State Service. He alos served under the President of the Russian Federation in Moscow as a Manager of State and Municipal Management of Church-State Relations.  

Mohd Hasbi Abu Bakar is the chairman of the Education Department of Jamiyah Singapore.  He holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from the University of South Australia, New South Wales.

Deputy director within the Department of Church-State Affairs within the Slovak Ministry of Culture. She has spearheaded past EU and OSCE-funded seminars in Europe.

Ricardo García García is the Deputy Director General for Religious Affairs of the Spanish Ministry of Justice. He received his Ph.D from the University of Cantabria and has served as Professor in the Faculty of Law at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid since 2005. His research interests include freedom of conscience and religious liberty in both Spanish and international law, multiculturalism, bioethics, and ecclesiastical law. Professor García is the author, organizer, and director of a number of important research studies exploring the role of religion in Spain.  His most important work,"La libertad religiosa en las Comunidades Autónomas. Veinticinco años de su regulación jurídica",  brings together eighteen experts to explore the role of religion in each of the seventeen autonomous communities within Spain.  It is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive study on the subject ever completed.

Lami Bertan Tokuzlu is an Assistant Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University Law School where he teaches courses on Refugee Law, Constitutional Law, Public Law, and European Union Law. He previously served as the Aziz Nesin Chair at the University of Viadrina in Frankfurt, Germany and as a guest lecturer at the Justice Academy in Ankara, the Florence School on Euro-Mediterranean Migration and Development, and at various seminars for government officials sponsored by the United Nations and the Turkish government. He has authored numerous articles, chapters, and reports on constitutional and refugee law.  Additionally, he worked as an attorney at Pekin & Pekin and Dogru Law Fim prior to entering academia.  He holds an LLB from Istanbul University, two LLMs from Mamara University in Turkey and Lund University in Sweeden, and a doctorate from Mamara University.

Liudmyla Fylypovych, is the Head of the History of Religion and Practical Religious Studies Department of the Philosophy Institute of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. She serves as the Vice-President of the Ukrainian Association of Researchers of Religion; the Executive Director of the Centre for religious information and freedom (CeRIF); the Vice President of the Ukrainian Religious Liberty Association (the national brunch of IRLA); and the Chairman of the Coordinating Council on Theoretical and Practical Religious Studies in CIS and Baltic countries. She is a member of numerous International professional societies and projects including the Fulbright Program; the Society of the Scientific Study of Religion; the International Academy on Freedom of Religion and Belief; the XIX-th and XX-th Special Sessions of the Congresses of the International Association for the History of Religions. Prof. Fylypovych is a well-known in Ukraine as an expert on religious affairs who writes scientific books and analytic articles. She is the author of about 200 publications. She is an active participant and organizer a great number of conferences, seminars, round tables in Ukraine and abroad.

Before being appointed Deputy Minister of Culture in March 2014, Mr. Zhuravchak was a Senior lecturer at Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts.

Sue Breeze is a career diplomat, who began her career by learning Mandarin and with a posting to China.  Her most recent posting was as the UK’s Deputy Ambassador to Venezuela.  Her career has included time as Assistant Private Secretary to four Ministers for Europe and work on a wide range of bilateral and multilateral policy desks in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.  She currently heads up a team responsible for the UK’s work to promote and protect freedom of religion or belief as well as a broad spread of other equalities issues such as women’s rights and child rights.  She works closely with the UK Envoy on Post-Holocaust Issues to ensure that the UK plays a leading role in Holocaust education, research and remembrance internationally, and works actively to tackle anti-Semitism.  

Denis Edwards joined DePaul University College of Law as Director of the International Human Rights Law Institute and a visiting professor of law in 2014. Professor Edwards obtained an LLB with honors and the 1987 David Lowe Prize in Public Law from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. He received an LLM from Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, where he was a Commonwealth Scholar. He was a Lecturer in Law at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow from 1990 to 1995, and at the JW Goethe University in Frankfurt and the University of Giessen in Germany in 1993. He was a Visiting Professor of Law at Tulane Law School during the 1995-1996 academic year, and he was an Associate Professor of Law at the City University of Hong Kong between 1996 and 2000. In academic year 2000-2001, he was a Human Rights Law Teaching Fellow at Columbia Law School in New York City. Since 2001, he has taught EU law with the University of London International Program, including in Hong Kong and Moscow. In 2012, 2013 and 2014 he taught EU Law at DePaul and also assisted in the DePaul Legal Clinic. Professor Edwards is a barrister of the Middle Temple, which awarded him a Harmsworth Scholarship. In 2003 and 2004, he was a judicial assistant in both the Court of Appeal and the Administrative Court of England and Wales. He is a member of the leading environmental law set of barristers’ chambers in London and an Advocate in Scotland. His expertise includes EU law, international trade law, administrative law, constitutional law, human rights law, environmental law and education law. He has appeared in courts at all levels in the UK, including three cases before the UK Supreme Court, and in two cases heard by the European Court of Human Rights. Professor Edwards also has published a number of articles in leading law journals, including the American Journal of Comparative Law and the Journal of Environmental Law. He co-authored a book on judicial review, with a UK Supreme Court Justice, which is regarded as the leading work on administrative law in Scotland. He has also participated in a number of lawyer and judicial training programs in developing countries, including in the People’s Republic of China.

Kishan Manocha is a psychiatrist and barrister by training and currently practises in the areas of mental health, immigration and international human rights law.  He served as a member of the national governing council of the Bahá'í community in the UK from 1998 to 2014 and was its General Secretary from 2005 to 2010.  He was also Director of the UK Bahá’í community’s Office of Public Affairs from 2010 to 2014.  Dr Manocha has also been a Visiting Research Fellow at the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, a Fellow of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, and a consultant to a number of international human rights organisations.  He has also taught constitutional law and public international law at the University of East London.  Dr Manocha is active in inter faith efforts at the national, regional and local levels, and is currently serving as a Vice Chair of the Inter Faith Network for the UK, a Vice Chair of the Faiths Forum for London, and Chair of the British Chapter of the International Association for Religious Freedom.

After graduating LLB from Leeds University Faculty of Law and later the Inns of Court School of Law, in 1984 David M.W. Pickup became the first LDS barrister called to the Bar in England & Wales. After practicing as a trial advocate in criminal and civil courts for over 20 years he was appointed in succession as a judge of the Mental Health Review Tribunal, judge of the Immigration and Asylum First-tier Tribunal, and, in 2012, as a Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge in the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal, determining appeals against decisions of First-tier Tribunal judges. As such, he is experienced in Asylum, Human Rights and International Humanitarian Protection law. He is the author of The Pick & Flower of England, the Story of the Mormons in Victorian England and currently serves as President of the Chorley England Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He and his wife Janet, who has served 20 years as a Magistrate, are the parents of 7 children (5 living) and 6 grandchildren. He lives in Lancashire, England.

As Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Elizabeth Clark has co-organized and taken part in dozens of conferences and academic projects with other scholars and with government leaders from around the world. She has from the beginning played a major role in organizing the Annual International Law and Religion Symposium at Brigham Young University. She has taken part in drafting commentaries and legal analyses of pending legislation and developments affecting religious freedom, and has assisted in drafting amicus briefs on international religious freedom issues for the U.S. Supreme Court. Before joining the Center, Professor Clark was an associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Mayer, Brown & Platt, where she was a member of the Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation Group. Professor Clark also clerked for Judge J. Clifford Wallace on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Clark graduated summa cum laude from the BYU Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the BYU Law Review. Drawing on her multilingual talents in Russian, Czech, German and French, Professor Clark has been active in writing and lecturing on church-state and comparative law topics. She has taught classes on Comparative Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, International Human Rights, and European Union law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. She has published numerous articles and chapters on church-state issues and has been an associate editor of three major books: Facilitating Freedom of Religion and Belief and two books on law and religion in post-Communist Europe. Professor Clark has also testified before Congress on religious freedom issues.

Gary Doxey, former Managing Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, rejoined Center in 2009 after three years of service as president of the Mexico City South Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In April 2011 Professor Doxey was called as an Area Seventy of the Church. Before joining the law school, Professor Doxey served under Utah Governor Olene S. Walker as chief of staff – the state’s top appointed official, head of the cabinet, and chief operating officer of the executive branch. Prior to that, he served six years as general counsel to Utah Governor Michael O. Leavitt. Professor Doxey has spent much of his career in Utah state government, serving as deputy commissioner of financial institutions and as associate general counsel to the Utah Legislature. He is also a professor of history at Brigham Young University and has taught at the University of Utah. He spent his early legal career as a commercial law practitioner and was a judicial clerk for the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Utah. He has a PhD from Cambridge University and a JD from BYU. He speaks or reads several languages and is the author of many scholarly publications. In January 2011 he was named chair of the Center’s Development Committee.

Professor Cole Durham has been Director of Brigham Young University Law School's International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) since its official launch on January 1, 2000. He was named President of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS, Milan) on September 2011, and he is an Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was a Note Editor of the Harvard Law Review and Managing Editor of the Harvard International Law Journal, Professor Durham has been heavily involved in comparative law scholarship, with a special emphasis on comparative constitutional law. From 1989 to 1994, he served as the Secretary of the American Society of Comparative Law, and he is also an Associate Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law in Paris, where he was awarded the honorary designation of University Professor in 1999. Since 1994, he has also been a Recurring Visiting Professor of Law at Central European University in Budapest, where he teaches comparative constitutional law to students from throughout Eastern Europe, and increasingly from Asia and Africa as well. He has also been a guest professor in Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany and at the University of Vienna. In January, 2009, he was awarded the International First Freedom Award by the First Freedom Center in Richmond, Virginia, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Ovidius University in Constanţa, Romania in June, 2013. Professor Durham served from 1997-2013 as a member of the Advisory Council on Freedom of Religion or Belief of the OSCE’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. He has provided technical assistance on constitutions and laws dealing with freedom of religion or belief in approximately 50 countries worldwide. He has organized a series of conferences on comparative law issues at Brigham Young University and at other institutions in the United States over the past 20 years which have brought about 900 scholars and experts dealing with comparative constitutional law themes from over 100 countries to the United States. He is author and editor of numerous books and law review articles dealing with religious liberty and other comparative law themes. He has participated in hearings before the U.S. Congress and European parliamentary bodies on a variety of issues relevant to freedom of religion.

Brian Grim is president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation and a leading expert on international religious freedom and the socio-economic impact of restrictions on religious freedom, and an expert on international religious demography and religion-related violence. He is also an affiliated scholar at Boston University’s Institute on Culture, Religion & World Affairs. Prior to becoming the Foundation’s president in 2014, Brian directed the largest social science effort to collect and analyze global data on religion at the Pew Research Center, Washington DC’s premier “fact tank.” He also worked for two decades as an educator, researcher and development coordinator in the former Soviet Union, China, Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Brian holds a doctorate in sociology from the Pennsylvania State University. He is an author of The Price of Freedom Denied, considered the seminal work showing the dire consequences of denying religious freedom. He was written dozens of research articles and several academic books on global religion as well as being the author of the Weekly Number Blog. Brian has appeared as an expert on global religion on numerous media outlets, including CNN, BBC, Fox, CBS, C-SPAN. He regularly presents to high-level governmental, nongovernmental and academic groups in the U.S. and abroad, including the Whire House and the Vatican, State Department, European Parliament, and the UN Human Rights Council, and recently in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Morocco, Norway, Qatar, South Korea, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam.Brian also is a TEDx speaker. 

Orrin Hatch assumed office in the United States Senate on January 3, 1977. His tenure in the Senate thus has been marked by decades of influence over legislation in the United States, including twelve years, from 1993 to 2005, as chairman or ranking minority member of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, which helps shape the U.S. federal judiciary. Senator Hatch also served 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 and on the Board of Directors for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Among the important legislation for which Senator Hatch has been responsible was a landmark generic drug use act, co-sponsored with his colleague Henry Waxman. The Hatch-Waxman Law has just marked 30 years of serving to "cut health care costs, spur innovation, and create jobs," saving the American health care system trillions of dollars. Notable among Sentor Hatch's achievements was his work as a critical force in garnering bi-partisan support for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which was passed by overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993. RFRA was enacted to ensure that "governments should not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification." Seven years later Senator Hatch was the principal author of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), enacted unanimously by both houses of the United States Congress in 2000. RLUIPA protects all religions' rights to build church facilities on public property, as well as protecting the religious rights of incarcerated individuals from severe burdens.

Roberta Herzberg is Assistant Director of Individual Freedom & Free Markets at the John Templeton Foundation. She is a passionate advocate for enhancing and maintaining individual freedom, limited government, and competitive free markets and shares Sir John’s interest in maintaining and extending these goals for a free society. Prior to joining the Foundation, Dr. Herzberg held a faculty position in political science at Utah State University (USU), where she specialized in public policy, public choice, and American politics. At USU, she also served as department head in political science, as Administrative Director of The Institute of Political Economy, overseeing the USU government internship program, and was a principal investigator on a number of academic and federal grants that examined health and education policy and public choice institutions. She was also active in the Utah policy process and served on several state policy committees and commissions including the Utah Health Policy Commission, Small Employer Health Benefits study group, Medical Education Council, and Health Advisory Council, where she was vice-chair. Dr. Herzberg is currently president of The Public Choice Society, where she hopes to extend the impact of scholarship that identifies incentives in political and policy institutions using economic logic to improve those institutions and processes. She received a Ph.D in political economy from Washington University in St. Louis where she was associated with the Center for the Study of American Business and a B.A. from Pomona College in Claremont, CA. She has published several monographs and articles on policy, individual incentives, and political institutions in American Politics, and been a frequent speaker on health policy and the problems of the uninsured.

Professor Hurd works at the intersection of international politics, legal studies and religious studies.  She is currently writing a book on the legal and administrative regulation of religion in global and transnational politics.  Central themes include the politics of international human rights, global governance, legal and religious pluralism, and the international legal construction and regulation of religious freedom.  

Mr. Isaacson is a member of the International section at the law firm Kirton McConkie in Salt Lake City, Utah. He advises domestic and foreign businesses and not-for-profit organizations regarding all aspects of international trade and business, with specific emphasis in Latin America. Mr. Isaacson previously served as International Legal Counsel for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, supervising all of the church's legal work in South America. As part of this position, he managed international real estate acquisitions and construction, complex litigation and international arbitration, international tax compliance for not-for-profit organizations, government relations, and legal implementation of new programs.

On a regular basis, Mr. Isaacson makes presentations at international seminars held in countries such as Chile, Argentina, and Mexico about legal matters related to non-profit and religious organizations.

Mr. Isaacson is recognized as one of Utah's Legal Elite in international law.

EXPERIENCE

From 1998 through 2004, served as International Legal Counsel, Office of General Counsel, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, supervising all Church legal work in South America; managed international real estate acquisitions and construction, managed complex litigation and international arbitration, international tax compliance for not-for-profit organizations, managed government relations, legal implementation of new programs.

1989 to 1998, King & Isaacson, P.C., Salt Lake City, Utah.

1985-1989, Davis Graham & Stubbs, Salt Lake City, Utah

1981-1985, Davis Graham & Stubbs, Denver, Colorado

Slavica Jakelić received her BA in Sociology from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, an MTS from School of Theology at Boston University, and a PhD in religious studies from Boston University. Her scholarly interests and publications center on religion and identity, the relationship of religious and secular humanisms, Christianity in global perspective, interreligious dialogue, and conflict resolution. Before joining the Christ College faculty, Jakelić has worked at or been a fellow of a number of interdisciplinary institutes in Europe and the U.S.—the Erasmus Institute for the Culture of Democracy in Croatia, the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture at Boston University, the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna, Austria, the Erasmus Institute  at the University of Notre Dame, the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago, and the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study.  She is an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, where she was a faculty member and co-director of the institute's program on religion for several years. Jakelić is a co-editor of two volumes, The Future of the Study of Religion and Crossing Boundaries: From Syria to Slovakia, a co-editor of The Hedgehog Review’s issue “After Secularization,” and, most recently, the author of Collectivistic Religions: Religion, Choice, and Identity in Late Modernity. She is currently working on a book entitled The Practice of Religious and Secular Humanisms.

Mark Juergensmeyer is founding director and fellow of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, professor of sociology and global studies, and affiliate professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a pioneer in the field of global studies and writes on global religion, religious violence, conflict resolution and South Asian religion and politics. He has published more than three hundred articles and twenty books, including the recent Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State. An earlier version of this book was named by the New York Times as a notable book of the year. His widely-read Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, is based on interviews with religious activists around the world–including individuals convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, leaders of Hamas, and abortion clinic bombers in the United States–and was listed by the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times as one of the best nonfiction books of the year. His book on conflict resolution, Gandhi’s Way, was selected as Community Book of the Year at the University of California, Davis. Juergensmeyer’s edited books include Rethinking Secularism with Craig Calhoun and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, Religion in Global Civil Society, The Oxford Handbook of Global Religions, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence with Michael Jerryson and Margo Kitts, and the Princeton Reader on Religion and Violence, co-edited with Margo Kitts. He has co-edited The Encyclopedia of Global Religions with Wade Clark Roof and The Encyclopedia of Global Studies with Helmut Anheier and Victor Faessel. In 2006, he presented the Stafford Little Lectures at Princeton University, which will be published as a book, God at War by Princeton University Press. A textbook, Thinking Globally was published by the University of California Press in 2014. Juergensmeyer was elected President of the American Academy of Religion, and chaired the working group on Religion, Secularism, and International Affairs for the Social Science Research Council in New York City. He has received research fellowships from the Wilson Center in Washington D.C., the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the American Council of Learned Societies. He is the 2003 recipient of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for contributions to the study of religion, and is the 2004 recipient of the Silver Award of the Queen Sofia Center for the Study of Violence in Spain. He received Honorary Doctorates from Lehigh Universityin 2004 and from Roskilde University in Denmark in 2010; he received a Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2006. Since the events of September 11 he has been a frequent commentator in the news media, including CNN, NBC, CBS, BBC, NPR, Fox News, ABC’s Politically Incorrect, and CNBC’s Dennis Miller Show.

Professor David Kirkham is Senior Fellow for Comparative Law and International Policy at the BYU International Center for Law and Religion Studies, as well as  a professor in the BYU Department of Political Science. He came to the International Center for Law and Religion Studies in July 2007 from the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, where he served as Associate Dean and Professor of International Politics and Democratic Studies. Dr. Kirkham has also been an Associate Professor of History, Director of International History, and Director of International Plans and Programs at the United States Air Force Academy. He also conducted international negotiations and diplomatic activities for several years for the US Government and United Nations, including as Senior Humanitarian Affairs Officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva (with duties primarily in Africa). He has lived fifteen years of his adult life in five European countries (Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France and Belgium) and officially represented the United States and the UN in more than forty nations on six continents. He began his career in the early 1980s with a five-year law practice for the US Air Force in England and in Washington, D.C. Dr. Kirkham’s writing and teaching address international human rights, global democratization, constitutionalism, revolution, diplomacy, the United Nations, international humanitarian relief, and the global challenges posed by ideological extremism. Most recently he is co-editor of two books on Islam, law, and politics in Europe. He speaks French and German and holds a PhD from George Washington University and a Juris Doctorate from the J. Reuben Clark Law School.

Daniel Philpott, professor of political science and peace studies, is the director of the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Civil and Human Rights. A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 2001, Philpott is a scholar of international relations, political philosophy and peace studies whose research concerns religion and reconciliation in politics. He is the author of numerous articles and books on these subjects including, most recently, "Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation," which proposes concrete ethical guidelines to societies emerging from authoritarianism, civil war and genocide. In addition to directing a research program on religion and reconciliation for Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Philpott travels widely in pursuit of his scholarly interests. Between 2000 and 2006, he regularly visited Kashmir as an associate of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, and he regularly visits Uganda and the Great Lakes region of Africa to train political and religious leaders in reconciliation under the auspices of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network.

Dean Rasband joined the Law School faculty in 1995. Prior to entering academia, he served as a law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and practiced law at Perkins Coie in Seattle, Washington, where his practice focused on Indian treaty litigation. Immediately prior to his appointment as dean, he was serving in university administration as the Associate Academic Vice President for Faculty.

Dean Rasband’s research and teaching has centered on public land and natural resources law and policy. He has published many articles and book chapters on these subjects and is coauthor, along with James Salzman at Duke University and Mark Squillace at the University of Colorado, of Natural Resources Law and Policy, an important casebook in the field. He has taught courses in water law, wildlife law, public lands and natural resources law, torts, and international environmental law. He has also taught as a visiting professor at Murdoch University School of Law in Perth, Australia, and as a visiting fellow at T. C. Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.

Brett G. Scharffs is the Associate Dean for Faculty and Curriculum of Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, where he is Francis R. Kirkham Professor of Law and Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies. His teaching and scholarly interests include comparative and international law and religion, jurisprudence and adjudication, and international business law. Professor Scharffs is a graduate of Georgetown University, where he received a BSBA in international business and an MA in philosophy. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he earned a BPhil in philosophy. He received his JD from Yale Law School, where he was Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal. Professor Scharffs was a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, and worked as a legal assistant at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Hague. Before teaching at BYU, he worked as an attorney for the New York law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell. He has previously taught at Yale University and the George Washington University Law School, and is a visiting professor each year at Central European University in Budapest. In his 17-year academic career, Professor Scharffs has written more than 50 articles and book chapters, and has made over 150 scholarship presentations in 20 countries. His casebook, Law and Religion: National, International, and Comparative Perspectives, co-written with his colleague, W. Cole Durham, Jr., has been translated into Chinese and Vietnamese, with Turkish in preparation, and a second edition to appear in 2015.

As Managing Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Robert Smith oversees activities including Center-sponsored conferences worldwide, the Annual International Law and Religion Symposium in Provo, academic publications, international law and religion initiatives, and law-reform consultations. Professor Smith is a co-author, with W. Cole Durham, Jr. and William Bassett, of the treatise Religious Organizations and the Law, published in annual updates by Thomson West. Professor Smith has also co-authored numerous articles on religious freedom and other legal topics, is a speaker at international conferences on religious topics, and teaches a course on the taxation of religious organizations at the J. Reuben Clark Law School. Before joining the law school, Professor Smith was Executive Vice-President and General Counsel to CaseData Corporation, a shareholder and chairman of the Corporate and Tax department at the law firm of Kirton & McConkie in Salt Lake City, member of law firms in Washington, D.C. and Chicago, Illinois, and a CPA for Deloitte & Touche. Professor Smith received a BS in accounting from BYU, an MBA magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame, and a JD magna cum laude from the J. Reuben Clark Law School, where he was named to the Order of the Coif and served as Editor-in-Chief of the law review.

James Torono received a PhD from Harvard in Middle Eastern Studies. Jim is Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Brigham Young University, teaching courses in religion, humanities, language, and research methodology. He has lived in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan) for ten years teaching in international schools, studying Arabic language and literature, and conducting research on issues of Islamic education, legal status of religious minorities, and LDS missiology. For three years he served as director of the Center for Cultural and Educational Affairs in Amman, Jordan. James served as mission president of the Italy Catania Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and currently serves as a counselor in the Utah Provo Mission.