Palermo host the 8th Biennal Conference on Law and Religion

The 8th Biennial Conference of the Internationalj Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS) will be held from Tuesday 1 to Thursday 3 September 2026 at the University of Palermo, co-organiser of the event through its Department of Law. The general theme is “State Neutrality and Cooperation with Religion: Protecting Freedom of Religion or Belief without Discrimination”.

ICLARS (www.iclars.org) is an international academic network whose purpose, as stated in its bylaws, is to promote the development of law and religion studies throughout the world. It brings together scholars, judges and practitioners from every continent.
The conference will bring to Palermo over 270 participants from countries in every part of the world, in four plenary sessions and forty-eight parallel panels, with a keynote address by W. Cole Durham Jr. Sessions will take place at Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri and at the Department of Law, with the opening ceremony at the Teatro Politeama Garibaldi.

The Palermo edition is organized by the University of Palermo together with ICLARS, under the scientific coordination of Mario Ferrante, Professor of Canon and Ecclesiastical Law at the University of Palermo, and with the support of the Regione Siciliana and the City of Palermo. The previous edition, the 7th ICLARS Conference, was held from 21 to 23 October 2024 at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. The next edition will be held in Singapore in 2028.