Rights in Conflict: Case Studies

Part Three of a four-part series, Legal Cultures in Muslim Societies, sponsored in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations.

SPEAKERS

Reza Aslan is a fellow at the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy and Middle East Analyst for CBS News. He has degrees in Religions from Santa Clara University, Harvard University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa, where he was named the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He serves on the board of directors for both the Ploughshares Fund and PEN USA. Aslan’s first book is the New York Times Bestselling, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, which has been translated into half a dozen languages, short-listed for the Guardian (UK) First Book Award, and nominated for a PEN USA award for research Non-Fiction. His next book, How to Win a Cosmic War will be published by Random House in the Fall 2008, followed by an edited anthology, Words Without Borders: Contemporary Literature from the Muslim World, which will be published by Norton in the Spring of 2009. Aslan is cofounder and creative director of BoomGen Studios and the Editorial Executive of Mecca.com, an on-line community for Muslim youth. Born in Iran, he now lives in Santa Monica, CA, where he is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at University of California, Riverside.

Ricardo René Larémont is Interim Dean of Harpur College at SUNY Binghamton and Professor of Political Science and Sociology. His principal books include: Islam and the Politics of Resistance in Algeria, 1783-1992; The Causes of War and the Consequences of Peacekeeping in Africa; and, Borders, Nationalism, and the African State. His monograph-in-progress is Islamic Law and Politics in Nigeria, 1804-2007. His research focuses upon Islamic politics, Islamic law, ethnic and religious conflict, civil wars, conflict resolution, democratization, and civil/military relations. He was Carnegie Corporation Scholar for 2007 and Fulbright Scholar for 1994.

MODERATOR

Karen J. Greenberg is the Executive Director of the Center on Law and Security.  She is the editor of the NYU Review of Law and Security, co-editor of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib with Joshua Dratel, and editor of the books Al Qaeda Now and The Torture Debate in America (Cambridge University Press). She is a former Vice-President of the Soros Foundation/Open Society Institute and the founding director of the Program in International Education. She is a frequent writer, commentator, and lecturer on terrorism, the U.S. courts and the war on terror, global counterterrorism, and detainee issues. Her work has been featured in the LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, The American Prospect, and on the major news channels. Karen is currently working on her forthcoming book, The Enemy Combatant Papers: American Justice, the Courts, and the War on Terror, co-edited with Joshua Dratel.