Islam, Constitutions & Durable Democracy: The Cases Of Iraq & Afghanistan
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Copley Formal Lounge, 6:30-8:00pm
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Cosponsored by the Luce/SFS Program on Religion and International Affairs and the Prince Alwaleed Bin-Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding
By all accounts the democratic experiments in Iraq and Afghanistan are fragile. In Iraq, sectarian conflict abetted by foreign terrorists is putting enormous pressure on a weak governing coalition. In Afghanistan, a resurgent Taliban is challenging the writ of Kabul’s democratic government. What roles are the two countries’ respective constitutions, written by nationals but brokered by the United States, playing in preserving and strengthening democracy?
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Founder and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, and previously served as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. George is a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award.
William L. Saunders, Jr. is Senior Fellow and Director of the Family Research Council's Center for Human Life and Bioethics. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Mr. Saunders also serves as human rights counsel at FRC and directs the Council’s UN work and international activities. Mr. Saunders was appointed by President Bush to serve on the United States delegation to the UN Special Session on Children in 2001/02. He is Vice Chair for Religious Liberty for the Federalist Society and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Center for Law, Philosophy and Culture at the Catholic University of America.
Professor Muqtedar Khan is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware. He earned his Ph.D. in International Relations, Political Philosophy, and Islamic Political Thought, from Georgetown University. Dr. Khan is also associated with the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy and the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. He has been the President, Vice President and General Secretary of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists.
Intisar Rabb received her JD from the Yale Law School and is a PhD candidate at Princeton University, where she focuses on comparative American and Islamic legal interpretation. Most recently, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Judge Thomas Ambro of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and this year, she is a Fellow at Princeton University's Center for Human Values. Part of her work has involved an assessment of Islamic law and democracy in Muslim countries---for which an article is forthcoming in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law: "We the Jurists: Islamic Constitutionalism in Iraq." Intisar is a 1999 graduate from Georgetown's College with an honors degree in Government and Arabic.
Moderated by Professor Thomas Farr, first Director of the State Department's Office for International Religious Freedom (1999-2003), Visiting Professor in the School of Foreign Service and Berkley Center at Georgetown University.
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