With H. Victor Condé,  MA, JD, LLM, International Human Rights Lawyer-Educator.

Part of the Center's "Rights in Conflict" luncheon series

This is a discussion about international human rights law in relation to the specific human right to freedom of religion or belief. It will include the speaker’s experiences engaging in leader training in freedom of religion in missions to Iraqi Kurdistan and Kathmandu, Nepal, using international human rights law, and the conflicting human rights discourse about freedom of religion in conflict ridden places.

Also discussed is the recent US Supreme Court opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the recent "gay wedding cake" case, viewed through the lens of both US Constitutional law and international human rights law. This case manifests the conflict/interplay of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and non-discrimination. and conflict between human rights discourses and multiple conflicting rights and principles and interpretations, and societal attitudes towards discrimination, and towards religion, its followers and teachings.

Contextual quotes:

"The state of affairs for international religious freedom is worsening in both depth and breadth of violations."

- U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, 2017 Annual Report

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"This case presents difficult questions as to the proper reconciliation of at least two principles.  The first is the authority of a State and its governmental entities to protect the rights and dignity of gay persons who are, or wish to be, married but who face discrimination when they seek goods or services. The second is the right of all persons to exercise fundamental freedoms under the First Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment."

- Supreme Court Justice Kennedy, The Masterpiece Cakeshop Case, 2018

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"Freedom of religion or belief has been described as ‘a particularly controversial right’. Indeed, it will never cease to be debated and exposed to very different interpretations in academia, politics and law. Some of the interpretations emerging in recent years, however, show a tendency towards obscuring the human rights approach and its three interconnected features of universalism, freedom and equality. There is, at any rate, a real danger for the contours of freedom of religion or belief to become increasingly blurred. Unless we pay attention, its basic principles may in the long run even be turned upside down."

- Prof. Heiner Bielefeldt, former UN Special Rapporteur for freedom of religion or belief

About the presenter:

H. Victor Condé is an international human rights lawyer and educator based in California and Europe. A graduate of Loyola High in LA, BA from UC Irvine in Classical Philology, he holds a Juris Doctor from UC Davis Law School, an MA in International Human Rights theory and practice, an LLM in International and Comparative Human Rights and Humanitarian Law from the Univ. of Essex, UK, and holds the Diplôme in International and Comparative Human Rights and Humanitarian Law from the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. He served as professor of human rights and humanitarian law at Trinity Law School in California, and lectured at the International Institute of Human Rights, Strasbourg, the University of California at Irvine, the Catholic University of Brussels, and University of Strasbourg, France, and has served as a human rights legal consultant to NGOs and to the O.S.C.E .  as well as serving the Church as a legal consultant to  Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, permanent representative of the Holy See (Vatican) at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

A member of the California and Hawaii Bars he practices law part time in California, and travels globally as an international human rights trainer for Hardwired Inc., a human rights NGO focusing on freedom of religion globally.

A light lunch to be served.  RSVP for the Condé event here or at the "Register" button on the right of the BC calendar event listing online.