Juan Martín Vives (1980-2019) – Director, Center for Studies on Law and Religion, Universidad Adventista del Plata, Argentina

Juan Martín Vives was a professor of undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Universidad Adventista del Plata, Argentina. He served as General Counsel for the university and has held various positions of academic management. In 2015 he was appointed Director of the Center for Studies on Law and Religion (CEDyR) at the university and Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal DER – Derecho, Estado y Religión.  He was named Dean of the Graduate School of UAP in 2019.  He earned a JD (National University of Córdoba), a diploma in Law Teaching (Universidad Adventista del Plata), an LLM in Corporate Law (Austral University), and a PhD in Public Global Law (Autonomous University of Barcelona). He was a member of the Charter Class of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies’ Young Scholars Fellowship on Religion and the Rule of Law in Oxford and received a scholarship to pursue postgraduate studies in Lucerne, Switzerland from the Center for Comparative Constitutional Law and Religion, University of Lucerne. Author of articles and book chapters, he is a regular speaker on matters related to law and religion, religious freedom, and relations between church and state. He recently appeared as amicus curiae before the Argentine Supreme Court in a case involving freedom of religion and belief.

We note with profound sadness that Professor Vives, only 39 years old, died of a massive heart attack on 1 October 2019. He is survived by his wife, Gisela, and their children, Jana and Mark.