The 25th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) will be held 7-9 October 2018 at the J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University. Delegate participants and invited observers will meet together to commemorate both the 25th anniversary of the Symposium and the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Space does not permit inviting the general public to this event, but the opening session on Sunday evening will be streamed live worldwide, and written reports and recordings of other sessions will be available soon after the Symposium’s close. 

Keynote speakers at the opening session on Sunday evening, October 7, will be Sam Brownback, United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, and Ann Power-Forde, an Irish laywer and academic who is currently Presiding Judge at the Constitutional Court Chamber of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) in The Hague and was formerly judge at the European Court of Human Rights. 

To date, more than 1200 delegates from 125 countries have met together in these annual meetings to discuss principles of religious liberty and to explore ways to better implement these principles. This year’s gathering will explore the theme “Protecting Religious Freedom and Dignity: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70.” Topics for discussion by delegates will include the history and implementation of the UDHR, human dignity as a central idea of human rights, and the protection of international religious freedom and human dignity by various institutions, among others.

Watch the ICLRS Symposium Page for informaton about accessing the Sunday evening live stream and other updating details about Symposium 2018. Information about and recordings from past symposia are also available from links on this page.