2

The Politicisation of Freedom of Religion or Belief for Better and Worse

Speaker Bios

(in the order they appear in the programme)

Heiner Bielefeldt is current United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief and Professor of Human Rights and Human Rights Policy at the University of Erlangen. From 2003 to 2009, Bielefeldt served as Director of the German Institute for Human Rights, which monitors the human rights situation inside Germany. In 2009, Bielefeldt was appointed professor in the newly created Chair of Human Rights and Human Rights Policy at the University of Erlangen, and is Associated Professor at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights. Bielefeldt teaches in the areas of political science, philosophy, law and history.

Tore Lindholm is emeritus professor (philosophy) at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo, member of the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief Advisory Council, and of the Human Rights Committee of the Church of Norway. His research interests focus on grounds for embracing universal human rights, bridging the divides of conflicting religions, cultures, and ideologies. In particular he studies the right to freedom of religion or non-religious conviction, including the two-way traffic between human rights and different religions/basic convictions.

Muhammad Khalid Masud M.A., Ph.D. (1973) McGill University is presently an ad hoc Judge of the Shariat Appellate Bench, Supreme Court of Pakistan. He has formerly held the following positions in Pakistan and abroad: Director General, Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, Islamabad; Chairman, Council of Islamic Ideology, Government of Pakistan, Islamabad; Professor and Academic Director of ISIM, Leiden, the Netherlands; Senior Lecturer, Centre for Islamic Legal Studies, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria; Distinguished Professor, Faculty of Law, International Islamic University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Visiting Professor, Collège de France, Paris. He has published extensively on Islamic law, contemporary issues, and on trends in the Muslim societies.

Vedbjørn Horsfjord is a postdoctoral researcher and senior lecturer at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo. His main research areas are Muslim-Christian relations and religion and human rights. He wrote his PhD on the "A Common Word" dialogue process between Muslim and Christian leaders. Vebjørn Horsfjord is an experienced practitioner of interreligious dialogue, and from 2006 to 2010 he served as General Secretary of the European Council of Religious Leaders which is part of the global Religions for Peace network.

Michelle Staggs Kelsall is a Malaysian/Australian lawyer with a Master’s degree in Public International Law from theLondon School of Economics and Political Scienceand Bachelor’s Degrees in both Communications and Law from Macquarie University. As Deputy Director of the Human rights Resource Centre she oversaw all of the Centre’s research, education and training activities and supported the mandate of the Executive Director to foster a rights-based approach to ASEAN integration. In September 2015, she received the Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Award from the University of Nottingham, where she is conducting her doctoral research in the Faculty of Law. Michelle continues to be involved in HRRC’s work as Senior Researcher for Business and Human Rights. Prior to joining the HRRC, Michelle spent several years working as Deputy Director of the UC Berkeley’s War Crimes Studies Center and heading the joint War Crimes Studies Center/East-West Center’s Asian International Justice Initiative. She also worked for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2010 – 2012.

Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang, currently Research Fellow at Bristol University, earned his Bachelor with First Class Honours from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand before pursuing his Masters at Yale Law School, USA. He joined the Faculty of Law, Chulalongkorn University, in 2009 teaching Constitutional and Administrative Law courses. In addition to teaching, he served as an assistant to the Cabinet's legal advisory committee and the Constitution Amendment Commission in 2010 -2011. His interest includes the rule of law, religious freedom, freedom of expression, and judicial review

Kishan Manocha is Senior Advisor on Freedom of Religion or Belief at the Organization for Security and Co-operation Europe Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw. Before this, he was Director of the Office of Public Affairs of the Bahá’í community of the United Kingdom. He holds degrees in medicine and law from the Universities of London and Cambridge respectively, and has worked as a psychiatrist and barrister. He has extensive experience of religious freedom and minority rights issues in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia as a consultant to governments as well as international and non-governmental organizations. He has worked at the Special Court for Sierra Leone and has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard as well as a Fellow of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Centre for Religion and Global Affairs and a Research Associate at the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation.

Ed Brown is Senior Advisor at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and Leader of the Norwegian Secretariat of the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief. Formerly Head of Department, Human Rights and Freedom of Religion or Belief at Stefanus Alliance International, his work entails teaching and facilitating seminars, workshops and conferences on the topics of Freedom of Religion or Belief and Human Rights. Ed engages in lobby and advocacy work with grassroots religious leaders as well as top political leaders. His fields of interest are: Human Rights, Freedom of Religion or Belief, Minority Rights, Religious Nationalism and Identity Politics, Islam, Hinduism and issues related to caste discrimination as well as broader rule of law and good governance issues.

Jeremy Gunn is a Professor of Law and Political Science at the International University of Rabat (Morocco) and is a Senior Fellow for Religion and Human Rights at Emory University School of Law. He was formerlythe Director of the Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, American Civil Liberties Union, Washington D.C., 2005 - 2009 and Director of Research and Deputy General Counsel, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Washington, DC, 1999 - 2000 and was aSenior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC, 1998-99.

Mark Lattimer is the Executive Director of Minority Rights Group International, an NGO which works in some 50 countries worldwide to secure the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples, and to promote cooperation between communities. Formerly with Amnesty International,
he is frequently used as an expert by the United Nations on issues concerning freedom of religion or belief. He is the author or editor of a number of books, including 'Justice for Crimes against Humanity' (Oxford, Hart, 2003) and 'Genocide and Human Rights' (Ashgate, 2006).

Katayoun Kishi is a research associate at Pew Research Center. She oversees the Center’s annual study on global restrictions on religion. Her previous work has included research on topics such as identity politics and religion, international conflict, survey research and food security. Before joining Pew Research Center, Kishi held positions at the United States Institute of Peace and the office of the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. She earned a doctorate in government and politics, with a concentration in comparative politics and quantitative methodology, from the University of Maryland.

John Kinahan John Kinahan works for Forum 18 < http://www.forum18.org>, which provides original reporting and analysis on violations of freedom of thought, conscience and belief of all people - whatever their belief or non-belief - in an objective, truthful and timely manner. It publishes on Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Russia, Belarus and Crimea, as well as publishing analyses on Turkey. The name 'Forum 18' comes from Article 18 of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. John has worked on freedom of thought, conscience and religion issues since 1997, and was an Irish member of the former Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

Lene Wetteland is Senior Advisor at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. She has a master’s degree in political science from the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. She also has Russian language, human rights law and Russia and Eastern Europe Studies in her range of subjects. At the Norwegian Helsinki Committee she cooperates with a range of organisations in the former Soviet Union on democracy support, advocacy and documentation of human rights violations. Lene has worked for several organisations in Armenia, Russia and Tajikistan, and prior to her employment at the NHC, she worked on the Norwegian Immigration Appeals board.

Nazila Ghanea is Associate Professor in International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford. She serves as Associate Director of the Oxford Human Rights Hub and is a Fellow of Kellogg College (BA Keele, MA Leeds, PhD Keele, MA Oxon). She serves as a member of the OSCE Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief and on the Board of Trustees of the independent think tank, the Universal Rights Group. Nazila’s research spans freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression, women’s rights, minority rights and human rights in the Middle East. Her publications include nine books, five UN publications as well as a number of journal articles and reports. Nazila has acted as a human rights consultant/expert for a number of governments, the UN, UNESCO, OSCE.

Malcolm Evans Sir Malcolm David Evans KCMG OBE is Professor of Public International Law and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law in the University of Bristol. His research interests include the international protection of human rights, with particular focus on the freedom of religion and the prevention of torture. He is a member, and since 2011, Chair, of the United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture (the SPT). From 2014-2015 he served as Chair of the Meeting of Chairs of UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies. From 2003 - 2013 he was also a member of the OSCE ODIHR Advisory Council on the Freedom of Religion or Belief, and he has worked extensively with numerous international organisations on a broad range of human rights issues.

W. Cole Durham Jr. is the Founding Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was a Note Editor of the Harvard Law Review and Managing Editor of the Harvard International Law Journal. He has focused on comparative law scholarship, with an emphasis on comparative constitutional law. He is the immediate past President of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS), based in Milan, Italy, and a Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion. He served as the Secretary of the American Society of Comparative Law from 1989 to 1994. He is an Associate Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law in Paris. He served in earlier years as Chair both of the Comparative Law Section and the Law and Religion Section of the American Association of Law Schools.

Brett Scharffs is Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies. He is an internationally recognized scholar and leader inthe field of international and comparative law and religion, human rights, and comparativeconstitutional law. For the past eightyears he has helped organize a Certificate Training Program on Religion and the Rule of Law in China. Healso co-organizes similar programs in Vietnam and Myanmar and has been working to develop amasters-level course on Shari’a and Human Rights with two universities in Indonesia. He was a law clerk on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, a legal assistant at the Iran-US ClaimsTribunal in The Hague, and worked as an attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell.

The conference is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs