New Book Finds Common Ground Between Islamic and International Law

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Nov 06, 2012
by Salzburg Global Seminar Staff
New Book Finds Common Ground Between Islamic and International Law

Book published following several SGS sessions An important book on Islamic and international human rights law, which is the product of three Salzburg Global Seminar sessions held in partnership with the International Bar Association, has just been published by Oxford University Press.The book, Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law: Searching for Common Ground?, is edited by Mark S. Ellis, Executive Director of the International Bar Association (IBA), Anver Emon, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Toronto, and Benjamin Glahn, former Deputy Chief Program Officer of SGS, who directed the three sessions – An International Rule of Law: Balancing Security, Democracy, and Human Rights in an Age of Terrorism (September 1 to 6, 2007) and two on Islamic and International Law: Searching for Common Ground (October 25 to 30, 2008 and November 14 to 19, 2010), all chaired by Dr. Ellis, with the last co-chaired with Professor Emon. As the editors say in their introduction, it is “the culmination of a multi-year effort by the International Bar Association, the Salzburg Global Seminar and a group of global leaders in law, education, and civil society”.Legal issues, and particularly those relating to human rights, have been a major source of misunderstanding and even hostility between the West and the Muslim world for many decades. The object of the sessions held in Salzburg was to bring together legal scholars and others from both sides of this divide to explore the real content and nature of the different legal traditions and see how far they were really in tension with each other. It rapidly became apparent that neither is monolithic or unchanging. Both contain many rival schools of thought, and both have evolved over time and continue to do so. While complete uniformity of view is unlikely, and perhaps not even desirable, there is definitely common ground and this can be expanded through dialogue, research and creative legal thought.At the second session it was agreed that a book of essays by some of the leading participants would be a useful contribution. In May 2010 the authors presented their initial drafts at a workshop sponsored and hosted by the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey, and at the third Salzburg session some 50 people from over 15 countries – scholars, government officials and civil society leaders – met to evaluate the project, offering important feedback and criticism to the authors and editors. These discussions made it possible to revise and refine the chapters for publication.Issues covered in the book include freedom of speech, freedom of religion, women's equality, and minority rights. Among the distinguished contributors (nearly all of them Fellows of the Salzburg Global Seminar) are Hans Corell (former Legal Counsel to the United Nations), Justice Adel Omar Sherif (Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt), John B Bellinger III (former Legal Adviser to the US Department of State), Sandra Day O'Connor (former justice of the US Supreme Court) and Justice Richard Goldstone (former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals on Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia). There is also a short foreword by Edward Mortimer, SGS's Senior Program Advisor and former Senior Vice President.


Further details can be found, and copies ordered, at the following sites:Oxford Universtiy Press UK Oxford Universtiy Press US
Excerpts from Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law: Searching for Common Ground?
 "Many of the authors in this volume recognize that at the heart of both Islamic law and international law lies the aim and aspiration to regulate and order, or in a word, to ensure good and right governance."
   -- Anver Emon, Associate Professor, University of Toronto Faculty of Law. "A universally relevant human rights law can indeed find common ground in international and Islamic law.”
  -- Mark Ellis, executive director, International Bar Association."The Seminar concluded that in order in order to identify the common ground it is imperative first to clear away a large number of conceptual ambiguities and critically analyze the received perceptions of both Shari‘a and international law without limiting them to any value-based comparison. One of the gravest causes of ambiguity is the grand narrative of ‘modernity’ that juxtaposesit with ‘tradition’ in a dichotomous relationship."
   -- Muhammad Khalid Masud, former Chairman, Council of Islamic Ideology, Islamabad."To recognize that both traditions—Islamic law and human rights—are part of ongoing governing processes is an important recognition that shifts the dialogue and conversation to new ground upon which more productive work can begin.”
  -- Adel Omar Sherif, Deputy Chief Justice, Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt"Where the dignity of individuals is compromised, as where they are subjected to arbitrariness or unjust decisions—social injustices in other words—at the hand of the state, either system would ultimately collapse. This is what the rule of law is intended to protect usfrom. It is pivotal to the creation and promotion of social justice. In attempting to bridge the two systems, we must recognize that they are already bound together by this common thread.”
  -- Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, Advocate and Solicitor, High Court of Malaysia" The … clash between two opposing yet equally powerful frames of reference gave birth, as the [20th] century came to a close, to a new gender discourse that is Islamic in its language and sources of legitimacy, yet feminist in its demands. This new discourse… offers a new engagement, a meaningful dialogue, between Islamic and international human rights law, and holds the promise and potential to resolve the conflict between them.”
  -- Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Research Associate, Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, School of Oriental and African Studies, UK."The long-standing debates within the United States over CEDAW show that some parts of U.S. society view CEDAW [the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women] as a cultural challenge to US values in much the same way that some in Islamic states view CEDAW as a challenge to their values. Some in both societies think that CEDAW—at least absent broad reservations—would represent the imposition of U.N. and more generally ‘liberal’ Western values on preexisting, deeply held religious and cultural beliefs."
   -- Sandra Day O’Connor, Justice (Ret.), US Supreme Court