Obermann Scholar Honored for War on Terror and Nonprofit Research

University of Iowa law professor Mark Sidel is being honored for his research into the impact of anti-terrorism laws on nonprofit and philanthropic organizations in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

Sidel will receive the Civil Liberties Prize from the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law and the Catholic Organization for Relief and Development, awarded for scholarship on the legal and political environment for civil society.

Sidel's paper, written while at the UI Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, is titled “Counter-Terrorism, Civil Liberties and the Enabling Legal and Political Environment for Civil Society: A Comparative International Analysis of 'War on Terror' States.” It focuses on the legal and political environment for civil society in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia and examines the legal and political environment for civil society and analyzes the different ways counter-terrorism law and policy affect nonprofit and philanthropic institutions. He also examines the changes to existing regulatory institutions and the emergence of new regulators, and the differing responses of civil society institutions to those restrictions and policies.

An expanded version of Sidel's work will be published as a book next year. More information can be found at www.icnl.org/programs/location/crossregional/prize/