Freedom of Religion or Belief in Situations ofCrisis – Why Can’t We Get Along?

16-18 June 2016 - Tallinn, Estonia - Participant DirectoryHovhannes Hovhannisyan – ArmeniaDepartment of the History of Religions, Faculty of Theology, Yerevan StateUniversity; Associate Professor, American University of Armenia

Hovhannes Hovhannisyan received his BA in Theology from Yerevan StateUniversity, Faculty of Theology, in 2000, and his MA in 2002. He also graduatedfrom the Public Administration School of Armenia in 2002. He did his PhD in June2007 and the theme of his thesis was "The reformation movement in the ArmenianApostolic Church from 1901-1906." He is currently working in the Department of the History ofReligions, Faculty of Theology, Yerevan State University as well as the American University ofArmenia. He is the author of more than 30 academic articles published in foreign and local journals.In 2012-13, he was a visiting fellow at Yale University under the Faculty Development Program. Heis involved in international projects on dialogue and religious pluralism. He has participated inseveral international conferences and inter-religious seminars in the USA, China, Turkey, Georgia,and Russia.

Naira Sahakyan – ArmeniaPhD Candidate, Chair of Arabic Studies, Yerevan State University

Naira Sahkyan is a PhD student at the Department of Arabic Studies, the Faculty of Oriental Studiesat Yerevan State University (YSU). Her dissertation topic is related to the rational Islamic thought.Along with her studies, she is a research fellow in the Center for civilization and cultural studiesbased in YSU. Naira also is the co-founder of “Middle Orient” project, which is an online platformrelated to Middle Eastern and Islamic studies․ Naira's research includes the problem of authority inIslam, Islamic rational thought, and Islamic law, among other topics. She is the author of severalarticles including several on the topics of the phenomenon of the fatwa, and human (particularlynon-Muslim) rights in Islamic law.

Vladimir D. Vardanyan – ArmeniaHead of Legal Advisory Service, Constitutional Court of the Republic of Armenia

Dr. Vladimir D. Vardanyan received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in law from the Departmentof Law of Yerevan State University. After law school he entered the postgraduate studies program ofthe Museum-Institute of the Armenian Genocide of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republicof Armenia. In May of 2003, Dr. Vardanyan joined the Staff of the Constitutional Court of theRepublic of Armenia as a senior expert of Legal Advisory Service. In 2004, he transferred to thepostgraduate studies program in Public International Law of Yerevan State University to completehis PhD thesis. In June 2005, he defended his PhD thesis in Public International Law on the topic“Basis of State Responsibility for Genocide” at the Yerevan State University and began work as alecturer at the Department of European and International Law at Yerevan State University. FromApril 2006 to May 2013, Dr. Vardanyan was Head of International Treaties Department of the Staffof the Constitutional Court. In May 2013, he was appointed Head of the Legal Advisory Service of

the Court. Dr. Vardanyan has written more than 20 scientific papers dedicated to several aspects ofPublic International Law. He is a member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, amember of the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War, a member of the Board ofEditors of the All-Russian Scientific-Practical Journal Pravovaya Iniciativa, and co-founder of theInternational and Comparative Law Center of Armenia (ICLaw).

Jan De Groof – BelgiumProfessor at the College of Europe (Bruges) and at the University of Tilburg(Netherlands); Government Commissioner at the University of Antwerp and HasseltUniversity; UNESCO Chargé de Mission

Jan De Groof is a professor at the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium), and atTilburg University (the Netherlands), and previously at Ghent University (Belgium),teaching international and comparative educational law and policy. His academicwork and numerous publications have covered many education rights-related issues but alsoconstitutional and human rights law. Prof De Groof s founder and president of the EuropeanAssociation for Education Law and Policy (ELA) and co-founded the Russian and South-AfricanEducation Law Associations. He chaired – at the request of all regional Education Law and PolicyAssociations – the two World Conferences on Human Dignity, the Right to and Rights in Education(Amsterdam/The Hague,Brussels). Prof De Groof holds the UNESCO Chair for the Right to Educationand is former UNESCO Chargé de Mission on the Right to Education (2007-2010). He was andremains intensively involved in consultancy for national parliaments, governments and stakeholders,not the least in time of transition (Russia: 1990-2000, South Africa: 1995-2002), often in cooperationwith multilateral organisations. He is member of the Council of Senior Advisors of the InternationalAssociation of University Presidents (IAUP), accredited to the UN, and vice-chair of the LegalCommittee of EQAR. Furthermore, Prof De Groof has been Team Leader of the EU-Project ‘The Ruleof Law - Curriculum Reform of Legal Studies in Universities, especially in Iraq'. In 2015 he receivedan Honorary Doctorate from the University of Pretoria (South Africa), giving “recognition to hissignificant role as leader in various fields of education and law, his global influence in education lawduring the late 20th and the 21th century, as well as his assiduous campaigning for justice and goodgovernance in education,” and also chaired the Law Sessions in the framework of the WorldCongress on Catholic Education (Vatican, November 2015).

Willy Fautré – BelgiumDirector, Human Rights Without Frontiers

Willy Fautré is the director of the Brussels-based NGO Human Rights WithoutFrontiers International. He was Chargé de Mission at the Cabinet of the BelgianMinistry of Education and at the Belgian Parliament. In the mid-1970's during theCold War, he started defending religious freedom in Communist countries of Centraland Eastern Europe. He is a lecturer in the field of human rights and religiousfreedom. He develops advocacy in international institutions (UN, OSCE, EU). He is the editor of adaily newsletter on FoRB issues, an Annual Report on FoRB in the World and an Annual FoRBPrisoners List which this year comprised over 1500 individual cases. He has carried out fact-findingmissions in more than 20 countries.

Leni Franken – BelgiumFWO Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Antwerp; Centrum PieterGillis/Centrum voor Ethiek (Department Wijsbegeerte)

Leni Franken studied philosophy at the University of Antwerp/Catholic University ofLeuven, and religious sciences at the Catholic University of Leuven, and obtainedher PhD in Philosophy at the Centre Pieter Gillis, University of Antwerp (Belgium).Currently, she is an FWO postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Antwerp.Her main research topics are contemporary liberal theories; perfectionism, antiperfectionism andstate neutrality; and church-state regimes with a particular focus on financing religions, religiouseducation and faith-based schools. On these topics, she has been published in several peer-reviewedinternational journals. She was also co-editor of Religious Education in a Plural, Secularised Society:a Paradigm Shift (Waxmann), and in 2016, her monograph, Liberal Neutrality and State Support forReligion, was published (Springer).

Susan Kerr – BelgiumEurope Advocacy Manager, Christian Solidarity Worldwide

Dr. Susan Kerr is the Europe Advocacy Manager at Christian Solidarity Worldwide(CSW), a human rights NGO that specialises in Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB)and works to promote and defend this right for people of all faiths or none. Beforeworking for CSW, Susan worked in the European Parliament. Susan represents CSWas a member of the Board of Coordinators of the European Platform on ReligiousIntolerance and Discrimination (EPRID), which brings together different faith and non-faith basedorganisations to promote FoRB worldwide. Susan is also a member of the Board of Experts of theConscience and Liberty Journal. Susan holds a PhD in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford,an MA in International Politics from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and an MA in ModernLanguages and EU Studies from the University of Edinburgh. Susan is a member of the InternationalAssociation for Critical Realism (IACR) and is also engaged in peace and conflict resolutioninitiatives.

Vanja-Ivan Savić – CroatiaAssistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Head of Legal Theory Department, University ofZagreb

Dr. Vanja-Ivan Savić is a lawyer and legal scholar. He is currently AssistantProfessor at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law, where he works as Head ofthe Legal Theory Department. He holds a First Law Degree, cum laude, a Master ofScience in Law Degree, and a PhD degree in Legal Theory from the University ofZagreb. In 2005, he was British Chevening Scholar at The University of Edinburgh, and in 2010, hewas an international fellow at DePaul University’s International Human Rights Law Institute inChicago, United States. His has worked in many branches of law including a law firm in Zagreb, aninternational company focused on tourism, and for the past ten years, in academia. His areas ofexpertise include legal theory, theory of law and state, law and religion, corporate criminal law, andhuman rights. His interests include law, religion, and state together with religious legal systems. Hehas been a participant and a speaker at various international conferences and workshops. Dr. Savićhas conducted workshops on combatting human trafficking for Vietnamese lawyers at the VietnamNational University in Hanoi and for Croatian lawyers and students at the Inter-University Centerfor Advanced Studies in Dubrovnik, Croatia. In collaboration with Professor Richard Farkas, Savićcreated an academic blog dedicated to political, ethnic, religious and legal problems of Bosnia and

Herzegovina entitled “Chicago Initiative for Bosnia”. Most recently, he served as DistinguishedVisiting Research Fellow at University of Adelaide’s Research Unit for the Study of Society, Law andReligion and as a visiting scholar at the Buffett Center at Northwestern University in the UnitedStates. At the same time, he was a guest professor at DePaul University. He has published articles inCroatian, English, and Vietnamese as well as a textbook, Criminal Liability of Juristic Persons.

Alar Kilp – EstoniaLecturer in Comparative Politics, University of Tartu

Dr. Alar Kilp is a lecturer in comparative politics at the University of Tartu, Estonia,since 2004. In 2012, he defended his doctoral thesis, “Church Authority in Society,Culture and Politics after Communism”, at the University of Tartu. His researchdeals with religion and politics, secularization, morality politics, and church-staterelations in post-communist Europe. He has co-edited a special issue, “Religion,Politics, and Policy-making in Russia: Domestic and International Dimensions”, in Religion, State,and Society (Taylor & Francis, 2013, issue 3), and the volumes, Extremism Within and Around Us(Tartu University Press, 2011) and Religion and Politics in Multicultural Europe (Tartu UniversityPress, 2009). He has published articles in Kultura i Polityka (Tischner European University),Forschungen zur Anthropologie und Religionsgeschichte (Ugarit Verlag), Studies in Church History(Annuals of the Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Science), Religion, State and Society, Religion undGesellschaft in Ost und West, and Proceedings of the Estonian National Defense College. Universityof Tartu has awarded Alar with the Good Teaching Scholarship (2015-2017).

Merilin Kiviorg – EstoniaSenior Research Fellow in Public International Law, University of Tartu, School ofLaw

Dr. Merilin Kiviorg (DPhil Oxford, Mag iur Tartu) is a senior research fellow inpublic international law and human rights at the University of Tartu Faculty of Law,and an author of many articles published on law and religion, and on Europeanhuman rights law and practice regarding freedom of religion or belief. She hastaught international law, human rights and international relations at the University of Oxford as wellas serving as a lecturer and assistant professor in International Law, Human Rights, and EU Law atthe University of Tartu in Estonia. She was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institutein Florence. She has also served as an expert advisor on freedom of religion or belief for non-governmental and governmental bodies such as the Estonian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the LegalChancellor, and the Estonian President. She is currently teaching courses on Comparative HumanRights and on Religion and Human Rights. Her current research interests are human rights andreligion in Europe with special focus on Eastern Europe and specifically Russia.

Katre Luhamaa – EstoniaResearch Fellow in Public International Law, University of Tartu, School of Law

Dr. Katre Luhamaa is a researcher at the University of Tartu. She lectures at theFaculty of Law on a number of various subjects of international law, internationalhuman rights law, transitional justice, and EU law. She has also worked as acounselor to the Constitutional Review Chamber of the Supreme Court of Estonia.She completed her PhD in September 2015 with the thesis, “Universal HumanRights in National Contexts: Application of International Rights of the Child in Estonia, Finland, and

Russia.“ Her research interests are connected with the national implementation of internationalhuman rights, focusing on the national values and constitutional values that influence the nationalinterpretation and implementation of human rights. Recently, her attention has turned to therelationship and interaction of international human rights in EU, ECHR, and the national legalsystems. She participates in the research project of Prof. Lauri Mälksoo (University of Tartu) on theevolution of human rights law and discourse in the Russian Federation, and its interaction withhuman rights in Europe and the world.

Lauri Mälksoo – EstoniaProfessor of International Law, Head of the Department of Public Law, University ofTartu, School of Law

Prof. Dr. Lauri Mälksoo has worked as a Professor of International Law at theUniversity of Tartu since 2009. He is a graduate of the University of Tartu (1998),has studied at Georgetown University (LLM, 1999), Humboldt University Berlin (Driur, 2002) and has been a post-doctoral researcher at NYU (2004-2005) and TokyoUniversity (2006-2007). He was the main organizer of the 4th Research Forum of the EuropeanSociety of International Law on 26-28 May 2011. He has published on the international legal statusof the Baltic States, history and theory of international law, and Russia’s concept of internationallaw.

Thomas-Andreas Põder – EstoniaExtraordinary Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Institute of Theology ofthe EELC; Extraordinary Research Fellow at the School of Theology and ReligiousStudies, University of Tartu

Thomas-Andreas Põder, Dr. Theol. (University of Greifswald/Germany), is AssociateProfessor of Systematic Theology at the Institute of Theology of the EELC in Tallinn,and Research Fellow at the School of Theology and Religious Studies at theUniversity of Tartu. He studied theology and philosophy at the University of Tartu, at the CatholicInstitute of Sydney, and at the University of Tübingen. He taught Systematic Theology at theUniversity of Tartu between 2005-2015. He is a member of the International Association for SemioticStudies, the Estonian Semiotics Association, and the Academic Society of Theology (Estonia). Hismost recent publication is Solidarische Toleranz. Kreuzestheologie und Sozialethik bei Alexandervon Oettingen (Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht, 2016).

Ringo Ringvee – EstoniaAdvisor, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Department of Religious Affairs; Professor (extraordinarius)of Comparative Religion, Theological Institute of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church

Ringo Ringvee is an historian of religion with a focus on contemporary trends in the relationsbetween mainstream society and religion, especially minority religions. He has published articlesand book chapters on minority religions including New Religious Movements and Islam in Estoniaand in other Baltic States, and a book on Estonian legislation concerning Islam. Ringo Ringvee holdsa position as adviser at the Religious Affairs department at the Estonian Ministry of the Interior, andholds the post of Professor (extraordinarius) of Comparative Religion at the Theological Institute ofthe Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church. He received his Master’s degree from the University ofHelsinki and his PhD from the University of Tartu.

Olga Schihalejev – EstoniaAssociate Professor of Religious Education, Faculty of Theology, University of Tartu

Dr. Olga Schihalejev is an associate professor (docent) in religious education in the Faculty ofTheology at Tartu University and a researcher in the School of Historical and Contemporary Studiesin Södertörn University. She researches how young people's beliefs and commitments are expressedin different discourses of school, family, religious communities, and the youth culture. Her secondfield of interest is didactics of religious and values education in school context. She is a member ofthe International Seminar of Religious Education and Values (ISREV), the European Network forReligious Education through Contextual Approaches (ENRECA), the Baltic Initiative in DevelopingReligious Education (FBI), and she is a committee member of the Nordic Conference on ReligiousEducation (NCRE).

Halliki Voolma – EstoniaUniversity of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies

Dr. Halliki Voolma was born in Tallinn, Estonia, but at the age of ten moved toHungary and then to the UK for university. She earned a Bachelors, MPhil and aPhD degree at the University of Cambridge, UK, where she was a Gates Cambridgescholar at King’s College. Halliki’s PhD research at the University of CambridgeDepartment of Politics and International Studies addressed intimate partnerviolence against women with insecure immigration status in England and Sweden. The studycombined survivor and stakeholder interviews with an analysis of theory and national politics. Hallikihas also worked with UN Women on the International Women, Peace and Security Agenda, and ongender (in)equality research projects as part of a European Commission programme and a EuropeanParliament initiative. She is currently directing a Health Estonia Foundation spin-off “Action-Metre”- a collective awareness online platform which provides accessible and evidence-based informationon the large-scale societal outcomes of individual everyday micro actions.

Ingo Richter – GermanyProfessor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, (em.), Honorary Professor,University of Paris-Nanterre and Tuebingen; Chairman of the Irmgard-ConinxFoundation

Prof. Dr. Ingo Richter is President of the Irmgard Coninx Foundation and aprofessor at the University of Tübingen. He studied law at the universitiesof Göttingen, Munich, Hamburg, and Paris, receiving a Doctorate in Law fromHamburg University, and a Doctorate from Université de Paris. He has taught at numerousuniversities including the University of Hamburg and the universities of Bordeaux, Rostock,Hastings, and Chicago. He served as Chairman and Head of Deutsches Jugend Institut in Munichfrom 1993-2002, as Chairman of the 11th Government Commission on Children and Youth from1999-2001, and since 1977, as the editor of the educational – law journal Recht der Jugend und desBildungswesens. His areas of research include constitutional and administrative law; educationalpolitics and law, with a particular focus on school law and the law of continuing education; socialpolicy and law, with a particular focus on children and youth law; and labour law, with a particularfocus on youth in training and work.

Christos Tsevas – GreecePhD Candidate, University of Strasbourg-France and Democritus University ofThrace-Greece; Member, Greek Asylum Appeals Committees

Christos Tsevas is currently a PhD candidate under co-tutoring on the field ofhuman rights law and especially on freedom of religion at the University ofStrasbourg-France and the Democritus University of Thrace-Greece. He is amember of the Greek Asylum Appeals Committees, designated by the NationalCommission for Human Rights. Christos is an attorney-at-law specialized in national and Europeanpublic law, international and European human rights law, international refugee law, and EU asylumand immigration law.

Renáta Uitz – HungaryProfessor of Comparative Constitutional Law, Central European University

Renáta Uitz is Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law, Chair of theComparative Constitutional Law program, and co-director (with Károly Bárd) of theclinical specialization at Central European University Legal Studies. She obtainedher Doctor juris degree (summa cum laude) at Eotvos Lorant University, Faculty ofLaw, and received an LLM in Comparative Constitutional Law at CEU Legal Studies.She earned the SJD (summa cum laude) in comparative constitutional law, also from CEU LegalStudies. She began teaching at CEU in 2001, and became chair of the Comparative ConstitutionalLaw program in 2007. Her teaching covers subjects in comparative constitutional law in Europe andNorth America, transitional justice and human rights protection with special emphasis on theenforcement of constitutional rights and on issues of bodily privacy and sexuality. At the center ofher research interests are theories and practices of good governance in and after democratictransition, and the role of courts in constructing the constitutional subject. Constitutions, Courts andHistory (2004) was her first book, while her most recent is Freedom of Religion in EuropeanConstitutional and International Case Law (2007). In addition, she is the author of over 30 articlesand book chapters which have appeared mainly in English, Hungarian, and Russian. She regularlyspeaks at international conferences on comparative constitutional subjects.

Silvio Ferrari – ItalyProfessor of Canon Law, University of Milan

Silvio Ferrari, founder and honorary lifetime president of the InternationalConsortium for Law and Religion Studies, is Professor of Canon Law at theUniversity of Milan. He was visiting professor at the University of California(Berkeley), the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies (London), the Ecole Pratiquedes Hautes Etudes (Sorbonne, Paris), and the University of Leuven. His publicationsin English include Law, Religion, Constitution (ed. with Cole Durham, Cristiana Cianitto, and DonluThayer); Religion in Public Spaces (ed. with Sabrina Pastorelli); Law and Religion in the 21stCentury (ed. with Rinaldo Cristofori); Law and Religion in Post-Communist Europe (ed. with ColeDurham and Elizabeth Sewell), Islam and European Legal System (ed. with Anthony Bradney). He isa member of the Advisory Council on Freedom of Religion and Belief of the OSCE/ODIHR, memberof the International Academy of Comparative Law, a founding editor of the Oxford Journal of Lawand Religion, and member of the editorial board of the Ecclesiastical Law Journal. In addition, Prof.Ferrari is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Institut européen en sciences des religions(EPHE, Paris) and of the Board of Expert of the International Religious Liberty Association (SilverSpring, Maryland). He delivered a Messenger Lecture at Cornell University and received the

Distinguished Service Award of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies.

Roberta Medda-Windischer – ItalyGroup Leader/Senior Researcher, Institute for Minority Rights

Roberta Medda-Windischer (LLM, PhD), Senior Researcher and Group Leader forNational Minorities, Migration and Cultural Diversity at the Institute for MinorityRights of the European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Italy (EURAC), is aninternational lawyer specialised in human rights and minority protection. Herresearch focuses on the protection of minorities in international law and on newminorities stemming from migration, on which she has authored and edited monographs and multi-authored volumes, and published numerous articles and chapters in edited volumes both in Italy andabroad. Dr Medda-Windischer lectured in various post-university programs, including the EuropeanMaster Programme in Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC -Venice School of Human Rights).

Bakyt Ospanova – KazakhstanPhD candidate, International Relations, L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University

Bakyt Ospanova is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the L.N. Gumilyov EurasianNational University, Kazakhstan.

Roman Podoprigora – KazakhstanProfessor of Law, Caspian University, Kazakhstan

Roman Podoprigora is Professor of Law at Caspian Public University (Almaty,Kazakhstan). He has consulted with the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justiceof Kazakhstan and served on the Advisory Council of the OSCE Panel of Experts onFreedom of Religion. He has authored many publications on religious freedom andstate-church relations in Kazakhstan and Central Asia including State and ReligiousAssociations: Administrative Law Issues (2002), "Freedom of Religion and Belief and DiscretionaryState Approval of Religious Activity" in Facilitating Freedom of Religion or Belief: A Deskbook(2004), State and Religious Associations in Central Asia: Constitutional and Administrative LawApproaches (2005), "Kazakhstan" in Encyclopedia of World Constitutions (2007), Commentary toLaw on Religious Associations and Religious Activity (2013), and "Religious education in Kazakhstanin The Routledge International Handbook of Religious Education (2013).

Saule Sarkenova – KazakhstanSenior Lecturer, Karaganda University

Saule Sarkenova, is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Law at Karaganda University, Bolashak,Kazakhstan. She teaches Human Rights in the Department of Civil law.

Ammar Younas – KyrgyzstanPhD candidate, American University of Central Asia

Ammar Younas, originally from Pakistan, is currently a PhD candidate ofInternational and Comparative Politics at American University of Central Asia,Kyrgyzstan, and a part time student of law at MAUPFIB, Kyrgyzstan. Ammar holds aMaster’s Degree in Political Marketing from Rome Business School, Italy, and anAssociate Degree in Finance. At the age of 21, he earned an MD (Doctor ofMedicine) degree from International Higher School of Medicine, Kyrgyzstan, making him one of theyoungest medical doctors in the world. He lectures on Political Science as an Honorary Lecturer atEastern University, Kyrgyzstan. Ammar is very much interested in Political Philosophy, MoralPhilosophy, Politics and Religion, Terrorism Studies, and Linguistics.

Juris Rudevskis – LatviaSenior Lawyer, Research Division of the European Court of Human Rights

Juris Rudevskis studied law at the University of Paris-I (Panthéon-Sorbonne). He is the former Headof the Division of European Affairs of the Latvian Ministry of Justice, and has been working at theRegistry of the European Court of Human Rights since 2000. From 2004 to 2005, he worked as alegal secretary (“référendaire”) of the Latvian judge of the European Court of Justice inLuxembourg. He is currently a lawyer in the Research Division of the ECHR. He has publishedarticles on the principle of subsidiarity, legal philosophy and epistemology, international law, EUlaw, canon law, and Islamic law.

Adriaan Overbeeke – NetherlandsFaculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Adriaan Overbeeke, Lic. Political Sciences KULeuven, PhD Law U Antwerp, isAssistant Professor Constitutional Law and Senior Researcher at the Faculty of Law,Free University Amsterdam, participating in the research-group FundamentalRights, Regulation & Responsible Government (Kooijmans Institute (VU)). He is apart-time researcher at U Antwerp, Faculty of Law, involved in a research-programon religion, life stances, and law. His research topics are law relating to church-state issues,education law, and human rights. He is a member of the board of the Institute of Jewish Studies(UAntwerp); and the Centre for Religion and Law (VU)); and on the editorial board of NederlandsTijdschrift voor Kerk en Recht (web publication), and Recht, Religie en Samenleving.

Jeroen Temperman – NetherlandsProfessor of Public International Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Prof. Dr. Jeroen Temperman is Professor of Public International Law at theDepartment of International Law of Erasmus University Rotterdam. His research isfocused on freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression and extreme speech(particularly religious hate speech), religion-state relationships, and issues ofdiscrimination on religious grounds. Previously, he worked as assistant professor ofpublic international law at the University of Amsterdam; he has been a research fellow at the IrishCentre for Human Rights (National University of Ireland, Galway); and prior to that, he worked as atrainee with the human rights department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, UK, onissues of religious freedom. He was awarded a EUR-fellowship in 2010 for his project: "The

prohibition of advocacy of religious hatred in international and domestic law" and was a FulbrightScholar, visiting at Washington College of Law, American University, Washington, D.C. in 2014-15.He is Editor-in-Chief of Religion and Human Rights, an international law journal. CambridgeUniversity Press is publishing his book on the prohibition of advocacy of religious hatred in domesticand international law.

Sophie van Bijsterveld – NetherlandsSenator, Dutch Upper House of Parliament; Professor of Religion, Law, and Society,Radboud University

Sophie van Bijsterveld graduated in law at the University of Utrecht in 1983. Shereceived a doctorate in Law at Tilburg University in 1988. Currently, she isprofessor of religion, law and society at the Radboud University, the Netherlands.Sophie has published extensively in the fields of international human rightsprotection, religious liberty, constitutional law, and hybrid governance. Former professionalactivities include membership of the Council for Public Administration (Raad voor het openbaarbestuur), a statutory advisory body of the government, and parliament. At the international level,Sophie van Bijsterveld was a member of the Advisory Council of Freedom of Religion or Belief ofODIHR/OSCE (1998 – 2013). As of June 2007, Sophie is a member of the Dutch Upper House ofParliament (Eerste Kamer der Staten-Generaal) for the Christian Democratic Party (CDA).Committee Memberships include the Security and Justice Committee (vice chair), the Home AffairsCommittee, and the Asylum and Immigration Committee. From 2008 – 2015, she was also a Memberof the Board of the Scientific Institute of the Christian Democratic Party in the Netherlands.

Tymen van der Ploeg – NetherlandsProfessor Emeritus of Civil Law, Free University of Amsterdam

Tymen J. van der Ploeg studied Law at Leyden University. He worked fromNovember 1972 to September 2012 at the Law Faculty of the VU-University atAmsterdam where he has been a full professor in civil law, especially law on legalpersons and partnerships, since 1992. His research focuses on the law onassociations and foundations and the relations between religion, especially religiouscommunities, and law. He is editor–in-chief of the Netherlands Journal on Law and Religion, (NTRR –formerly NTKR), and a member of the board of the Centre on Religion and Law at the VU. He was amember of the General committee for church order of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands andis a member of the executive committee of CIO, an organisation for the relations of 30 Christian andJewish churches with the government.

Krystyna Bleszynska – PolandProfessor, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Department of Social Sciences

Krystyna Bleszynska holds MA, PhD and habilitation degrees from WarsawUniversity. She completed post-doctoral studies on Human Rights at the Institute ofLaw, Polish Academy of Sciences. She was a professor at Warsaw University,Warsaw School of Social Psychology and Graduate School of Humanities in Pultusk.Currently, she is Professor at the College of Social Sciences, Warsaw University ofLife Sciences, where she is the Chair of Intercultural Education and Social Pedagogy. She is avisiting professor and visiting scholar at universities in Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, and theUSA. She is a member of the US I-SIG COSMOS-project. She is a member of numerous education

associations and societies. She has been awarded multiple research grants and was the winner ofthe EU EQUAL-project competition with a grant to establish an intercultural center for advisingimmigrants and refugees in Warsaw. She has participated in and organized numerous conferencesand seminars in Poland and internationally. She authored a report on migrant children at Polishschools for the Polish Ministry of Education. She has authored numerous publications as well asacting as a reviewer of Polish and international scientific journals. In addition, she has acted as anexpert for Polish and US governmental bodies. Her scientific interests include Global andIntercultural Education; Education for Peace; Post-conflict societies; Human Rights; Socialinclusion/exclusion; Migrations, Diverse Societies, Inclusive Education. Professor Bleszynska hasreceived numerous honors including the Silver Cross of Merit for scientific and organizationalachievements.

Kishan Manocha – PolandSenior Advisor on Freedom of Religion and Belief, Human Rights Department,OSCE/ODIHR

Dr. Kishan Manocha is Senior Advisor on Freedom of Religion and Belief at theOrganization for Security and Co-operation Europe Office for DemocraticInstitutions and Human Rights in Warsaw. Before this, he was Director of the Officeof Public Affairs of the Bahá’í community of the United Kingdom. He holds degreesin medicine and law from the Universities of London and Cambridge respectively. He has extensiveexperience in religious freedom and minority rights issues in the Middle East, North Africa, andSouth Asia as a consultant to international and non-governmental organizations. He first trained inpsychiatry, completing a Research Fellowship in Forensic Psychiatry, before studying law. Hespecialized in international criminal and human rights law for his LLM and practiced as a barristerin a number of international criminal law cases before the English courts. He has worked at theSpecial Court for Sierra Leone and has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the Carr Center forHuman Rights at Harvard as well as a Fellow of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and HumanRights Studies at Concordia University. He has lectured at universities in the United Kingdom andPakistan, and is a Research Fellow at the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation, aProfessional Associate at the Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff University, and a member of theAdvisory Council of the Centre for Religion and Global Affairs.

Marek Szopski – PolandSenior Lecturer, English Institute, Warsaw University

Marek Szopski has Master’s degrees in English Philology and Sociology fromWarsaw University and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame,Indiana. He is currently on the faculty of the English Institute of Warsaw University(IA), and at the Academy of Social Sciences (SAN) in Warsaw. Marek Szopski hasalso lectured at the Communication Department and at the Sociology Department ofthe Appalachian State University, NC. At the University of Notre Dame, IN, he taught courses inSocial Movements, Self and Society, and Introduction to Sociology. He translated into Polish and hadpublished a General Theory of Authority by Yves R. Simon in 1998. He was also a co-translator of theHistory of the United States of America, ed. by A. Bartnicki and D. Critchlow, into Polish. In 2005 hepublished a handbook of Intercultural Communication in Polish. In 2011 he translated Solidarity:The Self-Limiting Revolution by Jadwiga Staniszkis. Recently he co-authored a chapter in Gender,Religion and Migration ed. by G.T Bonifacio and V. S.M. Angeles, published in Canada. At present heis working on an expanded version of Intercultural Communication. He is also invited to comment on

social and political issues on the Polish media.

Piotr Szymaniec – PolandVice-Director of the Institute of Socio-Legal Studies, The Angelus Silesius Universityof Applied Science in Wałbrzych

Dr. Piotr Szymaniec currently holds the position of Vice-director of the Institute ofSocio-Legal Studies at The Angelus Silesius University of Applied Sciences inWałbrzych (Poland). He specializes in the history of legal, political and socialthought, legal philosophy and public security. He is the author of more than fortypublications, including the monograph Republikanizm dla społeczeństwa handlowego. Myślpolityczno-prawna Adama Fergusona (‘Republicanism for a Commercial Society. The Political andLegal Thought of Adam Ferguson,’ 2013). He is the editor and co-author of the monographic volumeZasada proporcjonalności a ochrona praw podstawowych w państwach Europy (The Principle ofProportionality and the Protection of Fundamental Rights in the European States, 2015). He hasparticipated in many international conferences, including in Stockholm, Hannover, Vienna, St.Petersburg and Banská Bystrica. Szymaniec holds a PhD in Law from the University of Wrocław.

Mikhail Antonov – RussiaProfessor of Law and Director of the Department of Legal Theory and History,Higher School of Economics Moscow

Mikhail Antonov is Professor of Law associated with the Law Faculty at the NationalResearch University “Higher School of Economics”. Professor Antonov’s researchinterests focus upon contemporary legal theory, upon the problems of normativity inlaw, on the theory of sovereignty and on the theoretical problems pertaining toprotection of human rights. He holds a master’s degree in sociology (University Paris V, 2005), and aPhD degree in law from Saint Petersburg State University (2006) with the dissertation on the legalconception of Georges Gurvitch. He is the author of more than 100 articles and papers, some ofwhich have been published in English, French and German; a list of selected publications is athttp://www.hse.ru/org/persons/23948027.

Sergey A. Belov – RussiaAssociate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, Director of theInstitute of Official Language, St. Petersburg State University

Sergey Belov received his Ph.D. in 2003 from St. Petersburg State University. He iscurrently Associate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at St.Petersburg State University. Before joining the Law Faculty at St. Petersburg StateUniversity in 2004, he acted as Assistant Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St.Petersburg, as Deputy Judge of the Charter Court of St. Petersburg, and as Advisor to the Acting St.Petersburg Governor on legal matters. His field of expertise is public law, both Russian andcomparative. Prof. Belov researches comparative constitutional review and values in legal system,public-private partnership in Russia and abroad, and the direct effect of constitutions. He is thechair of the expert group of the project “Monitoring of Law Enforcement”, and Director of theResearch Institute of Official Language within St. Petersburg University. Prof. Belov is a member ofexpert boards in the federal parliament, expert projects “Strategy 2020” and “Open Government”.He is an individual member of IACL-AIDC (International Association of Constitutional Law). Hetaught as a visiting professor in universities in Europe, Asia, and South America.

Aleksandr Anatol'evich Burov – RussiaSenior Researcher, State Museum of the History of Religion

Olga Ganina – RussiaAssistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Volga region State University of Service

Olga Ganina works as Assistant Professor in Philosophy and Religious Studies Comparative Politicsat the Department of Philosophy, Volga Region State University of Service, Toglyatti. Her PhD thesisat Samara State University deals with the problem of traditional and transgressive forms of religionidentity of the Middle Volga region. Her research is devoted to the religious everydayness ofregional culture. She has co-edited the monograph, Features of everyday culture of the Middle Volgaregion religion (Ryazan, "Koncepciya", 2015). She has published articles in Vestnik SamarskogoGosudarstvennogo Universiteta (Samara State University), in V mire nauchnykh otkrytiy (In theWorld of Scientific Discoveries). In 2015, she participated in the International Scientific Conference"Сhallenges of religious freedom and the development of legislation" at the American University inArmenia.

Olga Kudriashova – RussiaAssociate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, St. Petersburg State University

Olga Kudriashova is Associate Professor of the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Lawat St. Petersburg State University. In 2008, she earned a Master’s of Law degree from St.Petersburg State University. In February 2013, she defended her Ph. Thesis, “Limitation of freedomof expression aimed to counteract extremism: constitutional aspects”, at St. Petersburg StateUniversity. She has worked for the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Constitutional Court of theRussian Federation, and St. Petersburg State University. Her research interests are comparativeconstitutional law, human rights, in particular freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and rightsof migrants.

Ekaterina Samokhina – RussiaProfessor, Faculty of Law, St. Petersburg University for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Ekaterina Samokhina is an associate professor at the University of Humanities and Social Sciences(St. Petersburg, Russia) and an advocate. In 2011, she became a co-organizer of the research groupCenter of Legal Argumentation and Normativity of Law founded in the Saint-Petersburg branch ofthe National Research University Higher School of Economics. From 2012, she has been a visitingresearcher at the Center of Legal Philosophy of Chaim Perelman at the Free University of Brussels.Her current research is devoted to the genesis of argumentative legal theory. She is the author ofmore than 20 articles and 25 translations.

Lev Simkin – RussiaProfessor of Law, Moscow State Academy for Intellectual Property

Dr. Lev Simkin is a Professor at Law, Moscow State Academy for IntellectualProperty. He practices in the area of Russian constitutional, civil, and intellectualproperty law. He is also an expert in the Russian court and arbitration systems. Dr.Simkin is an author of books and numerous articles on intellectual property andreligion-state relations in Russia. He was awarded the title of Honorable Advocate ofRussia. He is the former president of the International Committee for Facilitating Legal Reform inRussia.

José Ferrer Sanchez – SpainProfessor, Peace and Conflicts Institute, Collaborating Peace and Conflicts Institute,Granada University

Professor José Ferrer Sanchez holds a PhD in Law and Sociology Sciences from theCollaborating Peace and Conflicts Institute, Granada University. As a specialist inReligious Dialogue and Mediation, Professor Ferrer Sánchez teaches in theMediation Master (Granada University). In addition, he presents seminars atuniversities and negotiates between management and employees, and works as a human-resourcesmanager for the Local government. Professor Ferrer Sánchez has been invited to and participated inseveral symposiums and conferences on Religious Freedom and Religious Dialogue internationally.As an executive member of a UNESCO program in Andalucía (Dialogue Intercultural Department),Mr. Ferrer Sánchez collaborates with nongovernmental organizations to carry out humanitarianprojects among Sahrawi refugees who have fled Western Sahara. He was Judge of Peace from 2008-2012.

Enrique Montes Perez – SwitzerlandPresident, Association Miraisme International

Enrique Montes Pérez trained as a Social Graduate at the University of Vigo andundertook a postgraduate degree in Social Capital and Citizen Participation at theOpen University of Catalonia. He also specialized in Design and Evaluation of PublicPolicy for Development at the Pompeu Fabra University and is currently finishinghis Master in Government and Public Management in Latin America at the sameinstitution. For 12 years he emigrated, living in Colombia and the United States. In the latter hespecialized in the areas of Strategic Direction, Marketing, and Internationalization in diversesectors, such as commerce, the motor industry, real estate, and ICT. He combined his professionalactivities with civic activism, with a profound calling for the defense of human rights. He was on theBoard of Directors for the platform “Immigration Reform”, a civil movement that expanded to anational scale in support of the legalization of 12 million immigrants without documents. Since 2009,he has lived in Spain, where he decided to affiliate himself exclusively with the third sector. He isPresident of the Association of Miraisme® International, an organization in special consultativestatus with the Economic and Social Council since 2015, based in Geneva, from where Miraisme® isdeveloped as a system of values to build a harmonious society in the context of coexistence withrespect. From 2013, he has been developing an intense agenda with the United Nations’ UniversalSystem for the Protection of Human Rights, with emphasis on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Statusof Women, and Immigration issues. He is also the President of the Freedom of Religion InternationalCenter.

Bülent Senay – TurkeyProfessor of History of Religion and Culture; Culture Head of the Chair of History ofReligion Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Uludag University; OSCEHuman Rights Advisor

Bülent Şenay is associate Professor of History of Religion and Culture at theDepartment of Philosophy and Religion, Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey. Following his PhD inreligious studies & philosophy from Lancaster University, UK, he started as a lecturer in Philosophyof Islam and Ethics at the University College of St. Martin’s in Lancaster, UK. He continued asAssociate Professor of History of Religion teaching various courses. His research interest is focusedon culture, religion, and identity in multicultural societies, Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations, andreligion and politics in Europe. Prof. Şenay has been a participant at both the academic and thediplomatic level in the Intercultural Exchange Project of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. He iscurrently a member of the OSCE Advisory Panel for Freedom of Religion or Belief. He has publishedextensively in his field of research, and currently supervises various international projects onreligion, ethnicity and diversity. George Kovalenko – UkraineHead of Open Orthodox University of Saint Sophia-Wisdom, Ukrainian OrthodoxChurch

Archpriest George (Iurii Kovalenko) is currently the Head of Open OrthodoxUniversity of Saint Sophia-Wisdom. He has been involved in religious journalism formore than 20 years. He is the founder and chief editor of the first Ukraine OrthodoxInternet resource in the Ukraine titled "Orthodoxy in Ukraine", orthodoxy.org.ua. In2003, he created the first church news program on a national television broadcast, and from 2005-2008, he participated in the creation of the spiritual and educational TV Channel, «Glas». Since2008, he has served as the press secretary of the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and theChurch Minister of Information (Chairman of the Synodal Information Department). He wasspokesman for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church during the times of Metropolitan of Kiev and AllUkraine Volodymyr including during Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity (2013-2014). He is aparticipant in the public initiative "November 21”.

Olesia Otradnova – UkraineVice-Dean for International Relations, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

Prof. Olesia Otradnova, Dr. Habil. in law, is Vice-Dean for Research andInternational Relations, and a professor in the Civil Law department, Faculty of Law,Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. She is a member of the FacultySenate, and a member of the Research Council of the Supreme Court of Ukraine.Her fields of expertise include civil law (torts and contracts), and human rights law(remedies for human rights violation). She is an author of over 80 scientific publications and activelyparticipates in drafting civil legislation in Ukraine.

Dmytro Vovk – UkraineAssociate Professor of Religious Education, Yaroslav the Wise National LawUniversity

Dmytro Vovk, PhD in Law (2008), is an associate professor within the Theory ofState and Law Department, Yaroslav the Wise National Law University (Kharkiv,Ukraine). His main areas of research are rule of law, religious freedom intransitional societies, state and church relations in post-Soviet countries. He is anexpert of the OSCE, Council of Europe, Freedom House, and Ukrainian Helsinki Human RightsUnion projects. He has translated articles from English for Ukrainian and Russian academicjournals, including authors such as Ronald Dworkin, Norbert Horn, Martin Krieger, Kaarlo Tuori,Pauline Westerman, and Lorenzo Zucca. He is a member of the editorial board of the journalPhilosophy of Law and General Theory of Law – the only specialized Ukrainian journal dedicated tophilosophical problems in legal area.

Viktor Yelensky – UkraineMinistry of Culture Member of Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine and Head ofParliament’s Sub-Committee for Freedom of Conscience

Viktor Yelensky is a Member of Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine and Headof Parliament’s Sub-Committee for Freedom of Conscience. He earned his MA inHistory from Kyiv State University, and Candidate of Science and Doctor of ScienceDiplomas from the Institute of Philosophy of National Academy of Sciences ofUkraine. Previously, he worked as a researcher at the Institute of Sociology and Institute ofPhilosophy, as an editor for the Ukrainian Journal for Religious Studies, Lyudina i Svit, as the headof the Kyiv Bureau of Radio Liberty, and as a professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University andDiplomatic Academy of Ukraine. He has authored many books, articles, and essays on religiousfreedom, religion and politics, and global religious trends and transformations. He is head of theUkrainian Association for Religious Liberty. His most recent book is Great Comeback: Religion inGlobal Politics and International Relation in the End of 20th – Beginning of 21st Century.

Andriy Yurash – UkraineDirector, Department for Religious Affairs and Nationalities, Ministry of Culture,Ukraine

Andriy Yurash is the Director of the Department for Religious Affairs andNationalities of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine. He has a PhD in PoliticalScience. He is an Associate Professor at the Ivan Franko National University ofL’viv, as well as the Mykhajlo Drahomanov National Pedagogic University in Kyiv.He is a member of the International Editorial Board of the journal Religion, State & Society, of theInternational Study of Religion in Eastern and Central Europe Association (ISORECEA), and of theUkrainian Association of Religious Studies Scientists. He has participated in more than 70international and 10 All-Ukrainian conferences and seminars. He is the author of Pope John Paul II,co-editor of several editions, and has written several chapters, brochures, and over 110 scientificarticles published in 9 languages. He has done 870 interviews and special comments for Ukrainianand foreign media (press, radio, television), and more than 100 analytical articles in the media ofUkraine, Canada, France, Russia.

Martin Browne – United KingdomAssociate Researcher, Barrister, Manchester International Law Centre, University ofManchester

Martin Browne is a Barrister providing freelance legal services based inManchester, UK. He works in large criminal cases, fraud, and extradition. He alsoexperienced practice in public law, inquests, and inquiries. He worked for 2 yearson the longest jury trial in British legal history, concerning the recent historicinquiry into the Hillsborough Disaster. Martin is also an Associate Researcher at the ManchesterInternational Law Centre. In this role, Martin sits as a member of the ESIL Annual Conference 2018planning committee. He has recently been working on two projects concerning education: firstregarding the comparative legal regimes concerning the development of international schools, andsecondly, how senior courts approach the balancing of religious rights in the education sphere indifferent ways.

Maria Smirnova – United KingdomResearch Associate, The University of Manchester School of Law

Dr. Maria Smirnova (PhD, Moscow; LLM, Exeter) is a Research Associate at theUniversity of Manchester where her research covers the area of transnationalconstitutional law in the context of the most recent institutional transformation inthe Russian legal system. The impact of international human rights law on thetransformation of the Russian judicial system is of particular interest. As a memberof the scientific committee of the Federal Centre for Educational Legislation in Moscow, she alsofocuses on the Russian education law and policy in its current state and in comparison with othercountries. Her publications in this area cover such topics as linguistic diversity in education, fightingpoverty through education, corruption in education, religious rights and the right to education, andin more general terms, the justiciability of the right to education.

Elizabeth A. Clark – United StatesAssociate Director, International Center for Law and Religion Studies, BrighamYoung University, J. Reuben Clark Law School

As Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies,Elizabeth Clark has co-organized and taken part in dozens of conferences andacademic projects with other scholars and with government leaders from around theworld. She has from the beginning played a major role in organizing the AnnualInternational Law and Religion Symposium at Brigham Young University. She has taken part indrafting commentaries and legal analyses of pending legislation and developments affectingreligious freedom, and has assisted in drafting amicus briefs on international religious freedomissues for the U.S. Supreme Court. Before joining the Center, Professor Clark was an associate inthe Washington, D.C. office of Mayer, Brown & Platt, where she was a member of the Appellate andSupreme Court Litigation Group. Professor Clark also clerked for Judge J. Clifford Wallace on theU.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Clark graduated summa cum laude from theBYU Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the BYU Law Review. Drawing on hermultilingual talents in Russian, Czech, German and French, Professor Clark has been active inwriting and lecturing on church-state and comparative law topics. She has taught classes onComparative Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, International Human Rights, and EuropeanUnion law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. She has publishednumerous 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.

Jerry Pankhurst – United StatesProfessor of Sociology, University of Wittenberg

Prof Dr. Jerry Pankhurst, Professor of Sociology, is a noted scholar of the societiesof Russia and the Post-Soviet region. He teaches on this topic as well as on sociologyof religion and political sociology. He also has developed a teaching and researchspecialization on Islam and Islamic societies, with special interest in Egypt. He hascoedited two books of original articles on Soviet society, Contemporary SovietSociety and Understanding Soviet Society, and has contributed articles to several other scholarlycollections and professional journals. He has served as peer reviewer for many professional journals,including the American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Family Issues, Journal for the ScientificStudy of Religion, Sociology of Religion, Review of Religious Research, and Soviet and Post-SovietReview. He has received research grants from the International Research and Exchanges Board, TheCenter for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University, The Ohio State University, theKennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies at the Smithsonian Institution's Wilson Center forInternational Scholars, and Wittenberg. With this support, he has carried out research at Leningradand Moscow State Universities; the University of Sofia, Bulgaria; Keston Institute in the UnitedKingdom; American University of Cairo (Egypt); and the Library of Congress. Pankhurst received hisBA degree from Justin Morrill College of Michigan State University and his MA and PhD degreesfrom The University of Michigan. He completed additional graduate studies at Leningrad StateUniversity and Harvard University. He joined the Wittenberg faculty in 1984.

Maria Achton Thomas – United StatesPhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore

Maria Achton Thomas is a PhD candidate with the Faculty of Law at National University ofSingapore (NUS). Supported by the NUS Graduate Research Scholarship she is researching to whatextent legal regulation can promote religious harmony and integration of religious minorities, usingSingapore as a case study. She holds an LLM (Comparative & International Law) from NUS (2013)and an LLB (hons) from London Metropolitan University (2006). Previously Maria was a practicinglawyer in the United Kingdom, specialising in asylum and human rights law. She is currently avisiting research scholar at Columbia University with the Institute for Religion, Culture and PublicLife.

Jay D. Wexler – United StatesProfessor of Law, Boston University

Jay Wexler is Professor of Law at Boston University and the author of five books,including two about religion: Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds ofthe Church/State Wars, and When God Isn’t Green: A World-Wide Journey to PlacesWhere Religious Practice and Environmentalism Collide, both published by BeaconPress. His current book project for Stanford University Press is tentatively entitledOur Non-Christian Nation: How Wiccans, Atheists, Satanists, and Other Non-Christians areDemanding Their Rightful Place in American Public Life. A member of the Boston University facultysince 2001, Wexler has published scholarly articles in places like the Texas Law Review and theBrigham Young Law Review and has taught on Fulbright Fellowships in both Krakow, Poland and

Buenos Aires, Argentina. Prior to teaching, Wexler worked as an Attorney Advisor at the Office ofLegal Counsel in the U.S. Justice Department and as a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg onthe U.S. Supreme Court. Wexler has a BA in East Asian Studies from Harvard, an MA in religiousstudies from the University of Chicago Divinity School, and a JD from Stanford Law School.