Faculty Director Professor Kristen Stilt convened a workshop for country authors of the Oxford Handbook of Global Animal Law (forthcoming 2023, Anne Peters, Kristen Stilt, and Saskia Stucki, eds.). The Handbook is intended to be a comprehensive reference work that authoritatively establishes the new field of Global Animal Law, maps it, identifies relevant legal issues, and forms a platform for further legal research. The workshop, held over three days in late fall 2022, was attended by 17 country chapters authors from around the world and was funded jointly by the Harvard Animal Law & Policy Program, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Law and International Law, and the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law & Policy.  The Handbook will include country reports from Bahrain, Iran, and Turkey, among many others, and will include a chapter on Islamic conceptions of animal law, in historical and contemporary applications.

Associate Director Salma Waheedi published an article in the Arab Law Quarterly entitled “Litigating Women’s Rights in Gulf Monarchial Systems: The Kuwait and Bahrain Constitutional Courts as Case Studies,” which examines the dynamics of litigating women’s rights in Arab Gulf monarchical systems. The article is an inquiry into these courts’ jurisprudence and the factors that inhibit or enable their exercise of autonomous judicial powers to protect women’s rights. Waheedi also wrote a chapter entitled “Attempted Reforms: Laws that Criminalize Violence Against Women in Arab Countries,” as part of Musawah’s latest Arabic-language volume, Violence Against Women in Arab Societies: Challenges and Horizons for Change in Islamic Jurisprudence and Law.

Visiting Fellow Fatima Essop authored a book chapter entitled “Problems of and Possibilities for Islamic Divorce in South Africa.” The chapter analyzes Islamic divorce practices in South Africa, highlighting challenges that South African women face in seeking to obtain a divorce in Sharia courts, and proposes solutions to address current shortcomings. This chapter is published in the newly released volume, Islamic Divorce in the Twenty-First Century: A Global Perspective,which showcases a wide range of Muslim experiences in marital disputes and in seeking Islamic divorces.

Visiting Fellow Marwa Sharafeldin co-authored a chapter with Lynn Welchman and Zahia Jouirou on “Muslim Family Laws: Trajectories of Reform,” in Musawah’s newly released book, Justice and Beauty in Muslim Marriage: Towards Egalitarian Ethics and Laws. As the MENA Region Senior Expert at Musawah, Sharafeldin managed the Research Group on Violence Against Women, which released its latest publication in Arabic entitled Violence Against Women in Arab Societies: Challenges and Horizons for Change in Islamic Jurisprudence and Law. The publication is a unique collaboration between activists and scholars in the Arab region, with chapters that cover a range of topics such as analyses of laws and legal reforms, Islamic law and jurisprudence, social practices, and the role of arts and cinema.

Visiting Fellow Ermiza Tegal published an article entitled “Final question for MMDA reforms in Sri Lanka: Is the practice of polygamy Islamic?” in which she discussed proposed reforms to the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA) and argued in support of a comprehensive ban on polygamy in Sri Lanka, in accordance with the Islamic legal principle of preventing harm. Tegal also co-authored an essay for the Harvard Human Rights Blog entitled “The Crisis in Sri Lanka: Human Rights in Peril,” with Niyanthini Kadirgamar.

Event Recording: Muslim Women Speak: The Quest for Human Rights and Gender Justice in Islam



A panel with Zainah Anwar, co-founder and former executive director of Musawah and 

Sisters in Islam; Fer Ghanaa Ansari, International Advocacy Officer at Musawah; Hyshyama Hamin, campaign manager for the Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law at Equality Now; and Marwa Sharafeldin, Visiting Fellow at the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World. 

The speakers on the panel, which was featured as part of Harvard Worldwide Week 2022, discussed their journeys as Muslim women’s rights advocates towards gender equality and justice in Muslim societies and their experiences navigating the relationship between Islamic law and human rights advocacy. The discussion explored opportunities and challenges of reforming both secular and religious-based laws, especially family laws, the ongoing groundbreaking work to further a rights-based understanding of Islamic law, and paths forward towards collective solidarity and mindful action for gender equality and justice. 

Event Recap: The Crisis in Sri Lanka, Human Rights in Peril



On October 27, we hosted a discussion with Visiting Fellow Ermiza Tegal and Niyanthini 

Kadirgamar, which explored the unfolding developments in Sri Lanka, the responses of the government and international actors, and possibilities for a justice-oriented, people-centered approach to resolving the crisis in Sri Lanka. Following the event, Tegal and Kadirgamar published an essay that recaps and summarizes key discussion points and takeaways.