The International Center for Law and Religion Studies was honored to present Professor David Little and Dr. Gunnar Stålsett each with the Center’s Distinguished Service Award, at the Opening Session of the 22nd Annual International Law and Religion Symposium at Brigham Young University Law School on Sunday, October 4, 2015.  

The award is given to outstanding proponents of the cause of freedom of religion or belief worldwide, and the Center was pleased to be able to “celebrate the important role David Little has played in shaping the fields of religious ethics, peace, justice, and human rights studies”* and the role Dr. Stålsett has played in “maintaining the role of religion in all spheres of life, and for upholding religious institutions as a unique dimension of civil society**.”

Before his retirement in 2009, David Little was Professor of the Practice in Religion, Ethnicity, and International Conflict at Harvard Divinity School, and was an Associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. He is at present a Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & International Affairs at Georgetown University. He was Senior Scholar in Religion, Ethics and Human Rights at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. Before that, he taught at the University of Virginia and Yale Divinity School and was a member of the State Department Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad. He is co-author with Scott W. Hibbard of Islamic Activism and U.S. Foreign Policy, and also author of publications on Ukraine, Sri Lanka, and Tibet (with Hibbard) in the USIP series on religion, nationalism, and intolerance. In 2007 he published two edited volumes:  Peacemakers in Action: Profiles of Religion in Conflict Resolution, and Religion and Nationalism in Iraq: A Comparative Perspective (with Donald K. Swearer). He has authored a number of articles on religion and human rights, the history of rights and constitutionalism, and religion and peace. Cambridge University Press has recently published a book of his writings, Essays on Religion and Human Rights: Ground To Stand On, and a book of responses to his work by colleagues and former students: Religion and Public Policy: Human Rights, Conflict, and Ethics, edited by Sumner Twiss, Marian Simion & Rodney Petersen.

Bishop Gunnar Stålsett is an International President of the World Council of Religions for Peace and a member of its Board. He served as the co-chair for the XVI International AIDS Conference and as General Secretary of The Lutheran World Federation (Geneva). He has also been a member of the Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches. Over a period in the 1970s, he held offices as deputy member of the Norwegian Parliament, State Secretary for Education, Culture and Church Affairs, and member of the City Council of Oslo. He has served as an advisor to the Norwegian government on issues such as arms control, disarmament, and peace and reconciliation. He has participated in numerous Special Assemblies of the United Nations related to disarmament, the rights of children, and AIDS. Dr. Stålsett has served for 14 years as a member of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee and has been and is actively engaged in struggles for independence and in peace process efforts, including in Namibia, Guatemala, East-Timor, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kosovo and Iraq. He participates in a number of national and international inter-faith programmes. Additionally, he serves as a senior advisor to Norwegian Church Aid and a member of the Council of 100 of the World Economic Forum. 

Professor Little and Dr.Stålsett join a distinguished list of fellow recipients of this award, including Judge J. Clifford Wallace, Dr. Tahir Mahmood, Professor Silvio Ferrari, Professor Malcolm Evans OBE, and Senator Orrin Hatch.

*See Honoring the Career of David Little, a conference on religion, ethics, and peace that was held at Harvard Divinity School November 13-14, 2009, here.

**See Dr. Gunnar Stålsett, Religions for Peace, European Council of Religious Leaders, here.