Events
Current Events
Due Process in Islamic Criminal Law: Framing An Inquiry
Professor Sadiq Reza is a professor at New York Law School and a 2008 Carnegie Scholar. He will discuss his Carnegie project, "Due Process in Islamic Criminal Law," which focuses on identifying the essentials of criminal due process in classical Islamic legal theory and modern-day Islamic criminal jurisprudence.
Several Muslim-majority states today practice "Islamic" criminal law, prosecuting individuals for criminal prohibitions found in the Quran (e.g., theft, adultery) and, upon conviction, issuing the designated punishments (amputation, stoning). But neither the Quran nor classical jurisprudence set out a system of criminal procedure -- a set of rules to govern criminal investigations and prosecutions, including limitations on state power and guarantees for the accused. Pertinent rules and principles do exist in Islamic legal literature, however, and these rules typically meet or exceed contemporary international standards of due process. They also correspond directly with the substance of Islamic criminal prohibitions.
By identifying these rules and principles, Prof. Reza's work will therefore suggest a framework for bringing the modern practice of Islamic criminal law into closer conformity with both international standards of criminal due process and Islamic notions of justice.
Presented by: Berkeley Journal of Middle Eastern & Islamic Law and the Robbins Collection
Co-sponsored by: Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law, Boalt Hall Committee for Human Rights
Iraq History Project: Political Violence Before and After the US Invasion
Ms. Etelle Higonnet is the Analysis Director of the Iraq History Project (http://www.iqhp.org/), an initiative that has gathered close to 10,000 testimonies about human rights violations in Iraq -- making it one of the largest human rights documentation projects in the world.
Ms. Higonnet's talk will focus on personal narratives from victims, witnesses, and perpetrators of human rights violations committed during Saddam Hussein's regime and after the U.S. invasion in 2003, highlighting some of the more surprising similarities and exploring the reasons behind crucial divergences. Higonnet will cover not only the overview of how human rights documentation can function in a high-risk environment, but also legal issues that have arisen, such as the question of genocide with respect to Anfal in 1988, the disappearance of the men of the Barzani tribe in 1983, the persecution of Marsh Arabs, and, the repression of the Shaaban Uprising in 1991 after the Kuwait war.
Ms. Higonnet has previously worked at UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, multiple NGOs, and participated in two war crimes tribunals. Her work has taken her to a number of countries, including Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Cambodia, and Iraq. She is a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School, and has authored and co-authored several articles and books on transitional justice and human rights.
Presented by: Berkeley Journal of Middle Eastern & Islamic Law and the Robbins Collection
Co-sponsored by: Boalt Hall Committee for Human Rights
Past Events
ANNUAL ISLAMIC FINANCE SYMPOSIUM 2008
"Islamic Finance & Banking: Possibilities & Challenges in the Global Market"
April 3rd, 2-7:30 pm in the Goldberg Room, Boalt Hall
Islamic Finance has long been an important alternative financial system in the global marketplace. The increasing interaction between Western and traditionally Islamic markets has raised a number of issues relating to the present and future use of Islamic Finance. Therefore, the Symposium will provide both a practitioner and scholarly perspective on these issues through a structured forum for discussion on Global Islamic Finance.
SCHOLAR SERIES ON ISLAMIC LAW & SOCIETY
The 2008 Scholar Series is designed to promote the exchange of ideas and discussion on the current roles and challenges faced by Islamic law and society in the global arena. The Scholar Series intends to provide scholars and practitioners working with these issues with an opportunity to share their research with the faculty and students at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Through the exchange of ideas and information, the overall goal of the Scholar Series is to encourage discourse on the evolving nature of Islamic legal and policy issues in the world today. The following scholars will be visiting Boalt this Spring:
April 1st 1230pm in the Goldberg Room, Boalt Hall
Amr Shalakany - "Islamic Legal Histories"
March 18th 1230pm in the Goldberg Room, Boalt Hall
Professor Asifa Quraishi - "Who Says Shari'a Demands the Stoning of Women?: A Commentary on Islamic Law and Constitutionalism"
SECOND ANNUAL CURRENT AFFAIRS SYMPOSIUM 2008
"Liberated" Women: War & Oppression in Occupied Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine
Heller Lounge, MLK Bldg. - UC Berkeley
March 18th at 7pm-930pm
"Liberated" Women: War & Oppression in Occupied Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan
Berkeley Journal of Middle Eastern & Islamic Law
When: 7PM-9:30PM, March 18, 2008
Where: Heller Lounge, MLK UC Berkeley, Berkeley CA
About: Free & Open To the Public
On March 18, women scholars and activists will gather to discuss issues of militarism and occupation at the event entitled "Liberated" Women: War & Oppression in Occupied Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan hosted by Berkeley Journal of Middle Eastern & Islamic Law. Guest speakers include: Professor Fathia Al-Joumaily, Annie Fukushima, Hosai Ehsan and Dr. Razia Iqbal, Margo Okazawa-Rey, and speakers from MECA, and AfghanHands. The evening events will also include an artistic performance by Dina Omar.
Speakers and participants will provide personal experiences and activist perspectives on the plight of women in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. The symposium's objective is to complicate the language surrounding the occupation of these three countries—to expose the exploitation and disenfranchisement that directly result from occupation, and to delve deeper into how war and invasion disproportionately affects women. As the peace movement organizes to critique war, this event highlights the gendered dynamics to U.S. expansion in the name of "democracy".
While the treatment of Abu Ghraib has become the most visible in the U.S., this symposium will make visible women's experiences. As conveyed by scholars, "wars dirty little secret" is the use of rape as a tool for exerting power. The normalization of rape in trafficking of women to and from occupied countries as well as complicating how war and its utilization of rape as a tool for penetration maybe understood more broadly: the rape of the land, community, sense of self-determination. In complicating our understanding the current war in Iraq and how surrounding countries have been impacted this event illuminates the contradictions of U.S. efforts to liberate Arab communities.
Event sponsored by California Law Review, and Gender & Women's Studies, UCB and endorsed by Berkeley Journal of African-American Law and Policy; Asian American Law Journal; Asian Pacific American Law Student Association; Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice; La Raza Law Student Association; Global Exchange; Students for Justice in Palestine.
FIRST ANNUAL CURRENT AFFAIRS SYMPOSIUM 2007: "IRAQ: 4 YEARS OF 'FREEDOM'"
April 9, 2007
10 Evans Hall, UC Berkeley - 7:30pm to 9:30pm
Please join us in an evening of art, poetry, and much-needed political
action/discourse remembering the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men,
women and children who have been killed by 13 years of sanctions and
the tragic effects of Operation Iraqi "Freedom" that ended on April
9th 2003.
If you are frustrated with financially supporting the US's seemingly
endless de facto occupation of Iraq, then please help us in contacting
your senator to bring about an immediate halt to your tax-funded war
that is undermining Iraq's future and global stability. Postcards
addressed to your senator will be handed out on the main campus and at
the event.
Speakers Include: Samera Esmeir and Salam Talib, plus spoken-word and music.
