Conference on Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights

Are “universal” human rights in fact an imposition of western or Christian ideas? Is democracy, the “rule of the people,” compatible with God’s law? How does religion inform – and impede – the struggle for human rights around the world? The Berkley Center conference on “Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights” brought together leading anthropologists, sociologists, historians, and political scientists to explore questions on the ways in which religion intersects with the global human rights agendas. It breaks with the dominant “top down” approach centered on the principles found in sacred texts and authoritative theological and legal interpretations. Participants grappled with the issue “bottom up” – the interaction of human rights and religion in practice and the challenges they pose for national and international politics.

This conference, convened by Thomas Banchoff, Director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, and Robert Wuthnow, Director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University, was the third in a series. In April 2005 Georgetown University sponsored the Conference on New Religious Pluralism and Democracy. In March 2006, the Berkley Center hosted the inaugural Conference on the New Religious Pluralism in World Politics. Two books based on those conferences were published with Oxford University Press and edited by Center director Thomas Banchoff: Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism (2007) and Religious Pluralism, Globalization, and World Politics (2008).
 
Conference Schedule

Thursday March 15

Keynote Address
Are Religion and Human Rights Contradictory or Complementary?
Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch

Friday March 16

First Conference Session: Latin America and Africa

Paul Freston, Calvin College, "Religious Pluralism, Democracy and Human Rights in Latin America"
Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf, Brown University, "Gender Justice and Religion in Sub-Sahara Africa"
Alfred Stepan, Columbia University, "Islam and Human Rights in Senegal: Rituals of Respect"
Tom Banchoff, Georgetown University- Discussant

Second Conference Session: Islam in Transnational Perspective

Riva Kastoryano, Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Paris, "The Politicization of Islam in Europe: Human Rights and the Politics of Recognition"
Yvonne Haddad, Georgetown University, "Gender Jihad: The Quest to Ground Human Rights within Islam"
Robert Hefner, Boston University, "Constitutionalism and Democratization in Islam: Latent Prejudices, Recurrent Tensions"
Paul Heck, Georgetown University- Discussant

Third Conference Session: Russia and Asia

Marjorie Balzer, Georgetown University, "Religious Communities and Rights in the Russian Federation"
Pratap Mehta, Center for Policy Research, New Delhi, "Human Rights and the Ethnicisation of Religion in India"
Charles Keyes, University of Washington, "Can Non-Buddhists Have Equal Rights in Buddhist Countries?"
David Ownby, University of Montreal, "China, Religion, and Human Rights: Social Change and State Response"
Robert Wuthnow, Princeton University- Discussant