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The Future of US Religious Freedom Policy: Recommendations for the New Administration
October 10, 2008
The Berkley Center hosted the third of three symposia commemorating the tenth anniversary of the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Act. Panelists addressed U.S. IRF policy and democracy promotion, civil society, religion-based terrorism, law (domestic and international) and public diplomacy. The symposium led to a published brief on U.S. IRF policy that will be given to the new president and his administration.
Symposium Agenda
8:45am - 9:00am: Opening Remarks
Thomas Banchoff (Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs)
Chris Seiple (Institute for Global Engagement)
9:00am – 10:00am: U.S. International Religious Freedom Policy and Religious Extremism
Rick Santorum (Ethics and Public Policy Center)
William Schulz (Center for American Progress)
Moderator: Chris Seiple (Institute for Global Engagement)
10:00am – 11:00am: U.S.International Religious Freedom Policy and Public Diplomacy
William A. Galston (The Brookings Institution)
Jennifer Marshall (The Heritage Foundation)
Moderator: Dennis Hoover (Institute for Global Engagement)
11:00am – 11:15am: Break
11:15am – 12:15pm: U.S.International Religious Freedom Policy and Democracy
Marc Plattner (National Endowment for Democracy)
Daniel Philpott (University of Notre Dame University)
Moderator: Thomas Farr (Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs)
12:15pm-12:45pm Working Lunch
12:45pm – 2:00pm: U.S. International Religious Freedom Policy and Civil Society
Andrew Natsios (Georgetown University)
Elizabeth Prodromou (Boston University)
Carroll Bogert (Human Rights Watch)
Moderator: Mark Silk (Leonard Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life)
2:00pm – 2:15pm: Break
2:15pm – 3:45pm: U.S.
International Religious Freedom Policy and the Law
T. Jeremy Gunn (American Civil Liberties Union)
William L. Saunders, Jr. (Family Research Council)
David Saperstein (Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism)
Hadley Arkes (Amherst College)
Moderator: Cole Durham (International Center for Law and Religion Studies)
The International Religious Freedom Act: Ten Years Later, which is hosted by Georgetown University and co-organized by the Berkley Center and the Council on Faith & International Affairs at the Institute for Global Engagement.
Co-sponsors include:
International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University
Council for America’s First Freedom, Richmond, Virginia
Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington DC
Religious Liberties Practice Group of The Federalist Society, Washington DC
Leonard Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, Hartford, Connecticut
Human Rights Watch, New York, NY
Council on Foreign Relations, New York, NY
This series as a whole is made possible through the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation. The sponsors would also like to acknowledge support from the John Templeton Foundation for the October 2008 symposium, and for the policy brief.
Thomas F. Farr, a former American diplomat, is Visiting Associate Professor of Religion and International Affairs at Georgetown’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He is also Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, where he directs the Religion and US Foreign Policy Program. A leading authority on international religious freedom, Farr has published widely, including "Diplomacy in an Age of Faith" in Foreign Affairs (March/April 2008), and World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty is Vital to American National Security (Oxford University Press, 2008). Farr received his BA in history from Mercer University, and his Ph.D. in modern British and European history from the University of North Carolina.
