Religious Legal Theory Conference

Back from last week's conference hosted by Seton Hall Law School on "Religious Legal Theory: State of the Field."  Many Christian (Catholic and Evangelical) and Jewish scholars as well as a Muslim and a Buddhist professor spoke.  Sadly, my colleague M.S.Rajpurohit form NLU-Jodhpur at the last minute was unable to make it.  Rob Vischer's (University of St. Thomas) and Amy Uelmen's (Seton Hall) addresses greatly impressed me.  I'll work Amy's comments on a Trinitarian theory of the (lack of a) duty to render assistance in Torts will find its way into my discussion next semester of mitigation of damages in Contracts.

I was pleased that nothing Zach Calo (Valparaiso) said about human rights contradicted what I planned to say.  I worked with Nick Wolterstorff ("Justice: Rights and Wrongs"--see many of my pryorpostsindia blog entries) and Alan Jacobs ("Original Sin: A Cultural History") to provide an account for primary and secondary human rights as well as spreading the forums for vindication of violations of human rights across multiple jurisdictions.  Several good questions and suggestions from the audience.

Bottom line: even though, as David Skeel (UPenn) pointed out, the elite law reviews resist publishing distinctively Christian legal scholarship, plenty of it is happening by many folks at a variety of law schools.  Props to David Opderbeck and Angela Carmella for making this conference happen.