Image adapted from The Fabulous Creature Buraq by unknown author and a painting by Nar Singh (Public Domain) A virtual conference sponsored by Canopy Forum and the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory (CSLR) featuring scholars, experts and practitioners who will examine the many religious traditions of South Asia and their diverse…
The Religion of Secularism Reexamined by Leigh Eric Schmidt Excerpted from The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism America’s most famous infidel orator, Robert Ingersoll, was a paradoxically religious man. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he skewered his natal faith with a sharp wit and a silvery tongue on…
Legal pluralism, as practiced in Egypt in the 19th – 20th centuries, was made possible within institutional structures, procedural norms, and Islamic legal practice under Khedival rule. Islamic legal practice during Ottoman rule not only made other legal traditions accepted within a pluralist legal order, but also, it made them germane to how the system…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “What has Christianity to do with Criminal Law?” Peter Wosnik Released in 2020 by Routledge Press, Christianity and Criminal Law provides a veritable trove of insights into this important area of study. Not only does the work show the historical influence of Christianity on the development of modern…
Decolonizing Human Rightsby Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im Review by Firas Masri President Joe Biden and members of his administration have constantly reiterated the position that “human rights will be the center of our foreign policy.” Despite this claim, the Biden administration has failed to hold violators of human rights accountable. The U.S. government continues to support…
Photo of the Village Church of Lincolnshire by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash. For several decades, parties asserting religious liberty claims under the Free Exercise Clause saw little success at the Supreme Court. Over the past few years, however, religious groups have fared better. Recently, they prevailed in cases challenging various restrictions imposed on houses of…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “Ramirez v. Collier: Will the Supreme Court Expand the Right to the Presence of a Spiritual Advisor for Prisoners During Execution?” Peter Wosnik In September 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a rare, eleventh-hour stay in an execution case for prisoner John Ramirez. Ramirez was convicted of stabbing…
Photo of Lady Justice (Pixabay). In 2021, Johan D. van der Vyver, I.T. Cohen Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the Emory University School of Law, published a three-volume treatise on international criminal law. Volume One deals with The History and Structures of the International Criminal Court; Volume Two is devoted to Crimes within the Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court;…
Photo of Elizabeth Tower in London by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash. Legal historians have regularly regretted what they perceive to be the side-lining of their subject. Writing almost a decade ago, Daniel Siemens noted that “one gets the impression that legal history is slowly and inevitably dying — or that it has been in a coma for the last 30…
Image by Alexa from Pixabay. A number of years ago, I wrote an article addressing celebrating Thanksgiving according to Jewish law, which was published in Canopy Forum last year. In that article, I noted that most Jewish law authorities accept that: (1) Thanksgiving is an American holiday with secular origins, (2) While some people might celebrate…