Great to be back and greetings from Washington!

It's great to be back at Prawfs for another guest-blogging stint.   I'm looking forward to spending the month talking a bit about some of my favorite topics such as co-religionist commerce, religious arbitration, and non-state law.  

My growing interest in non-state law largely traces to my sense that conversations in both international law, transnational law, and religious law share much in common (e.g. discussions of what is law, can there be law without enforcement, how should the state treat competing legal norms etc.).  To further this interest, I'm running a symposium in Washington, D.C. today sponsored by Pepperdine Law School and the American Society for International Law titled "The Rise of Non-State Law."  The symposium is part of a series run by ASIL's International Legal Theory Interest Group and the papers from today's symposium will eventually become part of a volume published by Cambridge University Press.  

I must say the papers submitted (and being presented) by the participants are truly fantastic and have led today to some great conversation and debate.  For those who share the interest, here's the full schedule for the day:

Symposium Schedule

8:30 a.m. Breakfast (Tillar House)

8:45 Introduction (Michael Helfand (Pepperdine), John Linarelli (Swansea))

9:00 Panel 1—Global Legal Pluralism: Trends and Challenges

• Moderator: John Linarelli (Swansea)
• Panelists: 
  • Paul Schiff Berman (George Washington)
  • Ralf Michaels (Duke)
  • Peer Zumbansen (Osgoode)

10:45 Coffee

11:00  Panel 2—Non-State Law and Non-State Institutions

• Moderator: Donald Earl Childress III (Pepperdine)
• Panelists: 
  • Oren Perez (Bar-Ilan)
  • Sally Merry (NYU)
  • Harlan Cohen (Georgia)
  • Helen Quane (Swansea)

1:00 p.m. Lunch

2:00 Panel 3—The Role of Religion and Culture in Non-State Law

• Moderator: Mortimer Sellers (Baltimore)
• Panelists:
  • Nomi Stolzenberg (USC)
  • Joel Nichols (St. Thomas)
  • Clark Lombardi (Washington)

3:45 Coffee

4:00 Open Forum

5:00 Closing Comments