[no evidence he's actually coming?] Imam Abubakar Ali-Agan is Senior Lecturer of Islamic Jurisprudence, with a particular emphasis on the Prophetic Traditions (Sunnah and Hadith), Department of Religions, Faculty of Arts, University of Ilorin. He has attended major national and international conferences on interfaith dialogue. At the 34th Annual African Literature Association Conference at Western Illinois University, Macomb, he presented a paper on "Conflict between Religion and Culture". He presented a paper on "Urbanization and Resources Sustainability: Lessons From Maqasid Al-Sharicah" at the International Conference on Humanities, School of Humanities, Universiti Sains, Penang, Malaysia. Currently, he is a member of the Expanded Nigeria Inter-Religious Council and the Secretary of the DaCwah Committee of the Nigerian Supreme Council for the Islamic Affairs.
[DDT from LinkedIn] Victoria Alvarado is a global affairs and foreign policy expert with demonstrated leadership in diplomatic, civil society, and academic fields. She has worked for many years with the United States Department of State. She has been Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy at the Holy See (2014-2016); Strategic Planning Adviser, Washington DC Metro Area (2013-2014); Director Office for International Religious Freedom (2010-2012); Deputy Political Counselor in Kabul (2009-2010); Director, US National Security Council, Central American and Caribbean regions (2007-2008); Political Counselor, Managua, Nicaragua (2005-2007); Political Unit Chief in Baghdad (2004-2005); and previous assignments in Venezuela and Indonesia. From 2012-2013 she was a Counterterrorism Fellow at the National Defense University.
Rossella Bottoni is specialised in Law and Religion. She wrote her PhD dissertation on the origins of secularism in Turkey (1839-1938), which received in 2007 the Arturo Carlo Jemolo Award for the best PhD dissertation in Law and Religion-related disciplines. She is currently Researcher of History and Systems of Church-State Relations in the Faculty of Political Sciences at the Catholic University of Milan, and Adjunct Professor of Church-State Relations in the Department of Political and Legal Sciences and International Studies at the University of Padua, Italy.
Francesco Di Lillo assumed responsibility over the newly established European Union Office of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brussels, Belgium, on September 1, 2013. Prior to this assignment, he worked at the Europe Area office of the Church as Assistant Area Director of Public Affairs. He was President of the Italy Utah Cooperation Center (2011-2015), a nonprofit he co-founded to promote cultural, academic, and commercial partnerships between organizations from Italy and from Utah. He has worked in Cyprus with the Italian Embassy, the United Nations Development Program, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He holds a master's degree in Theory of Communications, cum laude, from the University Roma Tre, and a master in International Relations and Human Rights Protection from the Societa’ Italiana per l’Organizzazione Internazionale.
Gabriel Gonzáles Merlano is a priest with a degree in canon law from the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca and a Doctor in Canon Law from the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina, with the thesis: "The narcissistic personality disorder as the cause of marriage annulment, in doctrine and in the jurisprudence of the Roman Rota”. Since 1999 he is dedicated to teaching, and is currently a professor in the area of history and philosophy of law at Catholic University of Uruguay and other private universities. He is Professor of canon law and ecclesiastical law at the Faculty of Theology Msgr. Mariano Soler. since 1992 he is an advocate for the Tribunal Interdiocesano de Primera Instancia de Montevideo. Professor Merlano is Founder of the Institute of Religious Law of the State (IDRE) and a member of the Latin American Consortium for Religious Freedom. He has participated in forums and conferences in Uruguay and abroad (mainly Spain and Argentina) and is also the author of articles in national and international publications, mainly in relation to the canonical subject, freedom of religion, and philosophy and history law.
Gurinder Singh Jahns is Events Manager and Researcher for the UK Parliament All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief. Gurinder worked as a Campaign Organiser during the 2015 General Election in a key seat in the South East. He has an MA in International Peace and Security from King’s College London. Alongside his academic studies he worked for Amnesty International and took part in The Three Faiths Forum’s UN award-winning leadership programme, ParliaMentors.
Dr. Alison Mawhinney is a human rights lawyer with a specialisation in the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. She completed her undergraduate studies at Trinity College Dublin where she graduated with a BA (Hons) in Political Science. She completed a LLM in International Human Rights Law (Distinction) at the University of Essex and a PhD at Queen's University Belfast. Prior to undertaking PhD studies she worked for a variety of organisations in the field of human rights including the Council of Europe, the Organization for Co-operation and Security in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations. From 2006-2010, she was a lecturer at the School of Law, Queen's University Belfast, where she served as Assistant Director of the Human Rights Centre. She joined the School of Law at Bangor University in 2011. She is an editorial board member of the Routledge Law and Religion Series and a member of the AHRC Public Policy Advisory Group.
[DDT, from ICLARS III bio] René Pahud de Mortanges is since 1992 Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, where he teaches legal history, state-religion relationships, religious laws and constitutional law. He also serves as Director of the Institute of Law and Religion, Fribourg, was from 2007-2011 a member of the steering committee of the National Research Program, and serves as a counselor of state authorities and churches. In his around 100 publications he deals with a large variety of historical topics, state-religion questions in Switzerland and in Europa and with the internal Catholic and Protestant law. He is editor of the collections Freiburger Veröffentlichungen zum Religionsrecht and Europäische Rechts- und Regionalgeschichte. His latest publications include Religiöse Neutralität. Ein Rechtsprinzip in der multireligösen Gesellschaft (2008), Religionsrecht: Eine Einführung in das Jüdische, Christliche und Islamische Recht (with Petra Bleisch, David Bollag, and Christian Tappenbeck, 2010); Eglise Catholique et Etat en Suisse (with Libero Gerosa, 2010); Religion und Integration aus der Sicht des Rechts (2010), Die Kirchensteuern juristischer Personen in der Schweiz (with Raimund Süess and Christian R. Tappenbeck, 2012) and Mitgestaltungsmöglichkeiten für Laien in der katholischen Kirche. Rechtslage und pastorale Perspektiven (2013).
Megan Pearson joined the University of Winchester in 2014. She completed her PhD, which focused on the conflict between freedom of religion and sexual orientation equality rights, at the London School of Economics, where she was also a Graduate Teaching Assistant. She holds an LLM from King's College London, an MA from the University of Cambridge and has been called to the Bar. She teaches Legal Systems & Methods and Employment Law. Megan's main area of expertise are in Public Law, Employment Law, particularly Discrimination Law, and in Law and Religion. She has written article, book reviews and book chapters and is currently working on Proportionality, Equality Law and Religion (forthcoming 2016).
Caroline is a PhD Candidate in Law and a Teacher at the University of Bristol. Her particular research interest is Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. She is part of the Centre for the Study of Law and Religion and the Religious Rights in International Law Research Theme at the University of Bristol and runs a blog and twitter page dedicated to issues relating to freedom of religion and belief. She is a Research Associate at the Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff University where she is an active member of the Law and Religion Scholars Network, and is currently co-editing the Handbook on the Interdisciplinary Study of Law and Religion (Edward Elgar Press) with three other members of the Centre. In May this year, along with Dr Russell Sandberg, Caroline organised the Festival for Law and Religion at Cardiff University. Caroline is also a Magistrate (JP) and member of the Magistrates' Association. She holds a first class honours BA in Theology and an MA from the University of Oxford. She also holds an LLM (distinction) in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.
Penelope Rochow is at present Government Relations Representative at the European Union Office of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brussels.
Katharine Thane is Operations Director of the UK Parliament All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief. Before joining this organization, she worked in Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s European Institutions’ Office in Brussels, advocating for Freedom of Religion or Belief for all at EU level, as well as at a UN Human Rights Council Session. She has a BA in Philosophy and Theology from Durham University and an MA in Human Rights and Cultural Diversity from Essex University, where she specialized in Islam’s compatability with Freedom of Religion or Belief. Over the past five years Katharine has also enjoyed working with political and human rights organizations in London, Durham and Essex where she has particularly developed knowledge on politics’ role in effecting change within international, and in particular Muslim-majority, contexts.
Debates on whether male circumcision, ritual slaughter, or face-covering veils should be prohibited abound in Western societies. This project’s hypothesis is that in these debates we may discern a rhetorical mechanism of abstraction that marginalises, neutralises, and reframes the religious dimension of contentious manifestations. Moreover, the project will engage with theoretical debates on whether there are convincing grounds for the constitutional protection of religious freedom, and will critically reconstruct the available legal and normative framework on religious freedom. The methods used will be a combination of philosophical and conceptual analyses, critical discourse analysis, doctrinal research, and reflective equilibrium.
Getachew Assefa graduated with an LLB Degree (with Distinction) from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia (1996), and obtained an LLM Degree from the University of San Francisco, USA (2001), and a PhD in law from the University of Melbourne, Australia (2014). He is the author of numerous publications that have appeared in many national and foreign academic journals including the American Journal of Comparative Law. He is also the author of Ethiopian Constitutional Law with Comparative Notes and Materials: a textbook (Addis Ababa: Master Printing Press, 2012) and Grass-roots Justice in Ethiopia: The Contribution of Customary Dispute Resolution (co-editor with Alula Pankhurst) (Addis Ababa: United Printers, 2008). Currently, he is associate professor and Dean of College of Law and Governance Studies of Addis Ababa University. Dr. Getachew’s areas of research and teaching interest include Ethiopian and comparative constitutional law and federalism, human rights law, law and religion, children’s and women’s rights, administrative law, local governance, Ethiopian and comparative judicial system and dispute settlement, alternative dispute settlement, and traditional (informal) justice systems.