SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Pierre Berthelot (CIRID-IFAS/FACO, France), Marcel Boisard (Former director, UNITAR, Geneva, Switzerland), Mohammed Boudjellal (M’Sila U., Algeria), Francis Casorla (Honorary Judge, CDAPR - Rennes U., France), Umer Chapra (IRTI-BID-Jeddah, Saudi Arabia), Mustapha Cherif (former minister, Algiers U., Algeria), Dominique de Courcelles (CNRS-ENS Lyon-CIRID), Wafaa El Cherbini (Cairo U., Egypt), Emmanuel Gabellieri (Pôle Philosophie Sciences humaines, Catholic U. of Lyon, France), George Gendelman (Planetworkshops), Eric Geoffroy (Strasbourg U.-GEO, France), Rafael Giménez i Capdevila (Geographic Catalan Society, Barcelona, Spain), Sophie Henry (CMAP-Paris Mediation and Arbitration Center), Omar Hniche (Mohammed V U. Rabat-Souissi, Morocco), Frédéric Ichay (lawyer, Paris), Mouchira Lahiani (CIRID-IHEC, Cartago, Tunisia), Abderrahmane Lahlou (ABWAB consultants, Morocco), André Miquel (Vice-Président, Singer-Polignac Foundation), Satoshi Mizobata (Kyoto U., KIER, Japan), Mahmoud Sami Nabi (IRTI-BID-Jeddah, Saudi Arabia), Mohammed Nadif (Mohammed V U., Rabat-Souissi, Morocco), Beddy Ould Ebnou (IESE, Brussels, Belgium), Christoph Strosetzki (Münster U., Germany), Borhen Trigui (CIRID-Sfax U., Tunisia), Ibrahim Warde (Tufts U., USA).
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE SINGER-POLIGNAC FOUNDATION WITH THE KIND SUPPORT OF THE ISLAMIC RESEARCH AND TRAINING INSTITUTE
ETHICS & RELIGIONS FOR A FAIR ECONOMY
Singer-Polignac Foundation, 43 Avenue Georges Mandel, 75016 Paris, France Registration and reservations: [email protected]
Dates: January 23-24th 2014 Conference sessions: 2 days Languages : English, French
Singer-Polignac Foundation President: Professor Yves Pouliquen Singer-Polignac Foundation Vice-president: Professor André Miquel
International Conference Director: Professor Dominique de Courcelles, CNRS Research Director (National Center for Scientific Research-UMR 5037/ENS Lyon), CIRID President (International Research Center for Development Intelligence-Paris).
Assistants: Anne-Sophie Gintzburger, Ph.D., CIRID, CMSS-UWA (University of Western Australia), Grap.se; Bochra Kammarti, student Ph.D., ENS Lyon CIRID-Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Dalal Aassouli (ENS Lyon-CIRID), Badri Ahmed (ENS Lyon-CIRID), Jérôme Beilin (Planetworkshops, Batali), Houssem Bedoui (ENS Lyon- CIRID-BID-Jeddah, Saudi Arabia), Djamel Bouteldja (ENS Lyon-CIRID-BSEM, Riyadh), Maxime Dossa (CIRID), Anne-Sophie Gintzburger (CIRID-UWA/CMSS-Grap.se), Iyed Jalouali (ENS Lyon-CIRID), Bochra Kammarti (ENS Lyon-CIRID), Jérôme Lavandier (ENS Lyon-CIRID), Philippe Liger-Belair (ENS Lyon-CIRID-Finance Watch), Lucie Rousselot (ENS Lyon-CIRID-Editions Deyrolle pour l’Avenir), Arfang Sonko (CIRID-Africa Alternative Investment Group 2AIG), Amine Trabelsi (ENS Lyon-CIRID).
SYNOPSIS
Religions are the belief systems and rites through which men and women, both individually and collectively, seek to interact with the supernatural or to ensure their salvation through the implementation of values for themselves, others and the world at large.
Religions thus determine ethical or practical wisdom in order to provide salvation and fulfillment, as articulated through standards that claim universality and that produce constraints via rules or laws. These standards generally derive from the supreme virtue of equity.
According to the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, equity implies fairness or justice, concepts that do not necessarily involve religion.
Economics, according to its Greek etymology, refers to rules for the good management of one’s household. In Arabic economics is iqtisad, a term which denotes a complex set of behavioral norms that are made the subject of prayer. As it is associated with practices designed to meet the needs of daily life in fairness and in harmony with others and with the world at large, iqtisad has religious value and seeks legitimacy from religious sources.
We are not concerned here with the merely theoretical, the ideal of perfect justice, but instead assess the practical. We explore that which is fair in the actual economy, in a geographical area spanning from Western Europe to the Arabian Peninsula and Malaysia. We draw historically from the sacred, philosophical, and literary texts of the major religions and cultures. We look into the basis –liberties,
“capabilities”, as defined by Amartya Sen, including material and immaterial resources, governance, happiness, etc. – on which judgments of justice and injustice in the economy lie.
Can philosophical and religious teachings of the past determine today’s economic and financial models? This question is at the heart of the conference. We look at it from the perspective of the three monotheistic religions and their ethics, on the assumption that ethical intelligence and business intelligence go hand in hand.
The current economic crisis highlights the urgent need for regulations concerning the logic underlying profit-making, the urgent need for improvement in the shared-management and adequate redistribution of resources. Based on the identification of those injustices that can be repaired, essentially in economic and financial matters, we will bring together wisdom from the past and expertise from the present.
We will highlight the obvious relationship linking ethics and religion to a competitive, solidarity-based and social economy, and linking the informed and intelligent quest for justice to the rational regulation of profit-making. The purpose is to progress and to build together, to identify a fair balance, for instance regarding social and environmental matters, or regarding alternative methods of dispute resolution in economic matters.
Approaches developed nowadays in Islamic Economics, according to principles common to the three monotheistic religions, to the extent that they develop humanist avenues for new economic strategies, will be the focus of our attention.
Recommendations will be made on ways of regulating money circulation and on the logic underlying profit-making, for instance by implementing optimisation thresholds, developing new zakat techniques, controlling the illicit flow of funds, and fighting against corruption etc. The recommendations are of high relevance to current discussions and decisions relating to the policies and programs of countries, institutions and business.
Dominique de Courcelles, Paris, September 15th 2013.
