Peter Petkoff

Dr Peter Petkoff is a Tutorial Fellow in Law at Regent’s Park College where he also directs the Religion, Law and International Relations Programme. He is also a Managing Editor of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion. He is a member of the Executive Board of the European Academy of Religion, Religious Liberty Initiative at the University of Notre Dame and the G20 Forum on Religion and Sustainable Development. Peter is involved in cutting edge research on the relationship between religion and politics and law and religion. In his capacity as Director of the Religion, Law and International Relations Programme at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, he brings together lawyers, theologians, philosophers, social and political scientists and aims to develop innovative interdisciplinary strategies for studying law, religion and international relations from legal and theological perspectives.

His research focuses on the legal protection of sacred spaces and religious cultural heritage as well as on the coexistence of religious and non-religious legal systems, canon law and comparative religious law.
Through his work, he engages with academics, policy makers, lawyers, religious leaders and think tanks working in the field of religion and public life. In addition to academic his work has had impact on policy makers and on the ways religious communities articulate their public self-perception and their attitude to law, civic values, secularism and to their own internal normative systems. He belongs to several international research networks which study the broader questions of law and religion and religion and politics. He has extensive contacts with human rights lawyers as well as with Jewish, Islamic and Christian lawyers working in this area.