Special Conferences
MAY 30 – 31, 2012: Religion, Legal Pluralism, and Human Rights: European and Transatlantic Perspectives
Organized by:
Jean L. Cohen (Political Science, Columbia University)
Sam Moyn (History, Columbia University)
Yasmine Ergas (Human Rights Institute, Columbia University)
Legal pluralism is now being embraced as the just way to accommodate increased religious diversity in consolidated western liberal democracies, as a way to “privatize” or fragment state sovereignty by giving law making prerogatives to “private religious communities.” This conference will address the theoretical, normative, and political issues raised by legal pluralist demands. Our focus will be on the debates, developments, and cases in Europe and the United States. Some papers will address the European human rights regime, others the legal politics of particular nations individually or in comparative perspective. Our goal is to consider the meaning of the new pressure religious claims and of the assertions made by plural sources of law, placed on traditional frameworks under stress.