Religion Law Commons^™

Urban Warfare: Emerging Geopolitical Conundrum, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Urban warfare is as old as human history. It is becoming increasingly important in international political and military planning due to increasing global urbanization and the presence of megacities (urban areas with populations exceeding 10 million) in many global regions and being in areas of recent and potential military conflict. 2018 World Bank data notes that approximately 56% of the world's population lives in urban areas which is up from 34% in 1960. Many of these megacities, including New York City, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Manila are adjacent to oceanic waters and vulnerable to trade and supply …

Is Korematsu Good Law?, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

In Trump v. Hawaii, the Supreme Court claimed to overrule its infamous Korematsu decision. This Essay argues that this claim is both empty and grotesque. It is empty because a decision to overrule a prior case is not meaningful unless it specifies which propositions the Court is disavowing. Korematsu stands for many propositions, not all of which are agreed upon, but the Hawaii Court underspecifies what it meant to overrule. The Court’s claim of overruling Korematsu is grotesque because its emptiness means to conceal its disturbing affinity with that case.

No More 'Sha Still', Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

This op-ed laments the consequences of staying quiet in light of recent national and international events. It takes President Obama to task for blaming Israel for lack of progress in Middle East peace negotiations, as well as Congress for its ineptitude during the recent national debt ceiling negotiations.

Elusive Equality: The Armenian Genocide And The Failure Of Ottoman Legal Reform, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me to deliver some remarks this morning. By way of background, I am not a historian or genocide scholar, but a law professor with an interest in comparative law and religion. Comparative law and religion is a relatively new field. It explores how different legal regimes reflect, and influence, the relationships that religious communities have with the state and with each other. My recent work compares Islamic and Christian conceptions of law, a subject that has engaged Muslims and Christians since their first encounters in the seventh century.

When I approach …

Exploring Critical Issues In Religious Genocide: Case Studies Of Violence In Tibet, Iraq And Gujarat, 40 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 163 (2008), Robert Petit, Stuart K. Ford, Neha Jain

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Terrorism As An Intellectual Problem, Charles W. Collier

UF Law Faculty Publications

The past few years have been instructive for observers of religious terrorism. Events have conspired to reveal ever more of its grim visage, inner logic, and awful potential. Religious terrorism has been exhaustively analyzed as a security problem, a military problem, an economic problem, a political problem, and more. But it is also an intellectual problem, one with particular implications for the study of law, culture, and history. This Essay examines the intellectual assumptions of religious terrorism, and it does so from three distinct perspectives: the theory of religion and American constitutional law (Part I); the common law (Part II); …

The Application Of The Religious Freedom Restoration Act To Appearance Regulations That Presumptively Prohibit Observant Sikh Lawyers From Joining The U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps, Rajdeep Singh Jolly

W&M Law Student Publications

Observant Sikh lawyers are presumptively prohibited from joining the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps because they cannot satisfy the Army's appearance regulations. This essay argues that this presumptive prohibition violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Under RFRA, the federal government may substantially burden an individual's exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that its application of the burden furthers a compelling governmental interest by the least restrictive means.' The Army's appearance regulations are designed to promote two interests-uniformity and safety. In the course of furthering these interests, the Army's appearance regulations effectively preclude observant Sikhs from joining …

Parallel Courts In Post-Conflict Kosovo, Elena Baylis

Articles

Even as American attention is focused on Iraq's struggle to rebuild its political and legal systems in the face of violent sectarian divisions, another fractured society - Kosovo - has begun negotiations to resolve the question of its political independence. Kosovo's efforts to establish multi-ethnic rule of law in the context of persistent ethnic divisions offer lessons in transitional justice and in managing legal pluralism for Iraq and other states.

In Kosovo today, two parallel judicial systems each claim sole jurisdiction over the province. One system was established by the United Nations administration in Kosovo, while the other system is …

Handling The Truth, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ub Viewpoint – The Silence Of The Muslims, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

This article, written in the wake of the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, questions the failure of Muslims strongly to condemn acts of violence and murder committed by Islamic extremists, and argues that such silence encourages neutral parties to wonder if moderate Muslims may indeed sympathize with "the killers of 'infidels'" - which in turn can lead to fear, bias, and group defamation.

Holocaust Deniers Can't Be Ignored: History: As Victims And Witnesses Of World War Ii Die Off, Revisionist Views Of The Nazi Horrors Could Gain Broader Acceptance, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

On trial in an English courtroom, where British historian David Irving has sued American professor Deborah Lipstadt for defamation, is not only the scholars' reputations but history itself. Irving claims that he was libeled by Lipstadt's 1993 book, "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory," in which she called him "one of the most dangerous of the `revisionists'" because, "familiar with historical evidence, he bends it until it conforms with his ideological leanings and political agenda." But under British law, the burden of proof in defamation is squarely on the defendant, thus making it necessary for Lipstadt …

Religious Liberty In The Military: The First Amendment Under "Friendly Fire", Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

This article examines specific restrictions promulgated and practiced during the Persian Gulf War, provides a brief historical analysis of how the United States and other nations have traditionally accommodated the religious activities of their military personnel, and addresses the question of how far we can constitutionally limit the free-exercise rights of the people in the military in light of current Supreme Court jurisprudence.

Religious Liberty In The Military: The First Amendment Under "Friendly Fire", Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

Though freedom of religion remains one of our most cherished values, it is still among the most controversial of constitutional rights. This is especially true in the context of military service. Even those who purposefully enlist in the armed forces, implicitly giving up certain liberties they freely enjoyed as civilians, would not relinquish their freedom of conscience. Yet the right to practice their religious beliefs, unfettered by arbitrary governmental restrictions, is regularly challenged.

Fortunately, however, most western cultures regard religious liberty as so fundamental that their military establishments routinely develop regulations to accommodate specific religious practices.

This principle was of …

Rendering Unto Caesar: Legal Responses To Religious Nonconformity In The Armed Forces, Michael F. Noone Jr.

Scholarly Articles

The focus of this article is on the role of the legal system in resolving disputes regarding the accommodation of religious beliefs in the armed forces. Generally, these disputes arise when an individual's religious sensibilities make claims upon his conscience that cannot be reconciled with the demands imposed by military discipline. Although the believer may simply refuse to serve, a more difficult problem arises when the military believer does not or cannot claim the status of a conscientious objector, but seeks legal protection for his religiously motivated behavior while remaining in the service. Such a claim of protection may be …

Pastoral Politics And Public Policy: Reflections On The Legal Aspects Of The Catholic Bishops’ Pastoral Letter On War And Peace, Robert A. Destro

Scholarly Articles

Taken as a whole, the Roman Catholic Bishops' 1983 pastoral letter on war and peace, "The Challenge of Peace, God's Promise, and Our Response"' has two purposes: first, to assist Catholics in the formation of their consciences; and, second, to contribute to the ongoing public policy debate concerning the morality of war in general, and of nuclear war in particular. This article will address the stated purposes of and the suggestions made in the pastoral letter from the vantage point of American statutory and constitutional law. It will make no attempt to provide definitive legal answers to the many questions …

Struck V. Secretary Of Defense, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

The Conscientious Objector Exemption As An Establishment And An Accommodation Of Religion, Raymond B. Marcin

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.