Brief Bio

René Pahud de Mortanges is Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, where he teaches legal history, state-religion relationships, religious laws and constitutional law. He also serves as Director of the Institute of Law and Religion and as Co-Director of the Center of Islam and Society, both at the University of Fribourg. Furthermore he is Research Fellow at Renmin University in Bejing and Guest Professor at ECUPL in Shanghai.

René also serves as a counselor of state authorities and churches. In his over 100 publications he deals with a large variety of historical topics, state-religion questions in Switzerland, Europe and Asia and with legal questions within the internal catholic and protestant law. He is editor of the collections Freiburger Veröffentlichungen zum Religionsrecht and Europäische Rechts- und Regionalgeschichte.

Recent Publications

Religion and the Secular State in Switzerland, in: Javier Martinez-Torron/W. Cole Durham Jr. (Ed.), Religion and the Secular State. National reports, Madrid 2015, p. 720-735.

Article « Switzerland » in : Gerhard Robbers/W. Cole Durjam Jr.(Ed.). The Encyclopaedia of Law and Religion, Leiden 2016 (together with Raimund Süess)

Zwischen religiöser Pluralisierung und Säkularisierung. Aktuelle Entwicklungen bei der staatlichen Anerkennung von Religionsgemeinschaften, in: Religion, Liberalität und Rechtsstaat. Ein offenes Spannungsverhältnis, hrsg. von Gerhard Schwarz/Beat Sitter-Liver/Adrian Holderegger/Brigitte Tag, Zürich 2015, S.225-237.

Religion im schulischen Unterricht. Die rechtlichen Grundlagen, in: Sophia Bietenhard/Dominik Helbling/Kuno Schmid (Hrsg.), Ethik, Religion, Gemeinschaft. Ein Studienbuch, Bern 2015, S. 78-84, zusammen mit Raimund Süess.

Kommentar zu Art. 15 BV (Religionsfreiheit) in: Basler Kommentar zur Bundesverfassung, hrsg. von Bernhard Waldmann/Eva Maria Belser/Astrid Epiney, Basel 2015, S. 328-356

Courses taught at CTLS

  • Legal Pluralism in Action: Religious Marriage Laws and the State (Spring 2022)
  • Comparative Constitutional History (Spring 2022, Fall 2016)
  • State, Law and Religion (Fall 2016)