Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Ending Persecution?

Readers of this blog and listeners to Legal Spirits will know that I’m skeptical that international human rights law can do much on its own to end religious persecution. Everything depends on state enforcement–and states, including the US, only get involved when their interests suggest they should. Even then, there is typically little the “international community” can do when local actors really want to punish a religious minority, other than offer asylum–collective action problems always seem to get in the way, and the international community typically loses interest in time. It’s a very sad fact. But I know that other people think this view is too pessimistic. For a more optimistic view on what international human rights law can do, here is a new book from the University of Notre Dame Press, Ending Persecution: Charting the Path to Global Religious Freedom, by longtime human rights lawyer Knox Thames. The publisher’s description follows:

Building on his extensive experience in the U.S. government and as an international human rights lawyer, H. Knox Thames provides fresh, decisive strategies to advance religious freedom for all.

Today, a scourge of religious persecution is impacting every faith community around the globe. In Ending Persecution: Charting the Path to Global Religious Freedom, author H. Knox Thames takes readers to some of the world’s most repressive countries in the Middle East and Asia, exposing the harsh reality of religious repression. Thames breaks down the devastating litany of human rights abuses faced by religious groups in these countries into four major types of persecution: terrorism in the Middle East, government-sponsored genocides in China and Burma, cultural changes due to extremism in Pakistan, and tyrannical democracy in Nepal and India.

Ending Persecution recounts the range of tools and policies that the U.S. government has used to encourage reform in repressive governments, leverage U.S. influence for the oppressed, and to reflect the best of American values of diversity, minority rights, and religious freedom. To help the persecuted in the twenty-first century, Thames argues, the United States must revitalize its approach and recommit to ending oppression by supporting coalition building and interfaith tolerance.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A New Book on Religious Freedom in the Middle East

I’m delighted to report that last month Brill released a new book by a great friend of the Mattone Center (and mine!) for many years, Professor Andrea Pin. Andrea, who teaches law at the University of Padua, has an encyclopedic knowledge of comparative law, especially the comparative law of church and state, and he has devoted much of his career to studying how law and religion interact in the Middle East. His new book, Religious Freedom without the Rule of Law: The Constitutional Odysseys of Afghanistan, Egypt, and Iraq and the Fate of the Middle East, addresses that interaction. Highly recommended! Here is the description from the publisher’s website:

The volume compares the efforts to instil the values and practices of the rule of law in the Middle East in the early twenty-first century with their disappointing performances in terms of safety, human rights, and, especially, religious freedom. It zooms in on Afghanistan, Egypt, and Iraq to argue that international interventions and local initiatives underestimated the ethno-religious mosaic of these countries and their political and constitutional culture.

The standard notion of the rule of law values individualism, equality, rights, and courts, which hardly fit the makeup of the Middle East. Securing stability and protecting religious freedom in the region requires compromising on the rule of law; the consociational model of constitutionalism would have better chances of achieving them.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Lindkvist, “Religious Freedom and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”

In June, Cambridge University Press will release “Religious Freedom and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” by Linde Lindkvist (Uppsala Universitet).  The publisher’s description follows:

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) is widely considered to be the most influential statement on religious freedom in human history. Religious 9781107159419Freedom and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides a groundbreaking account of its origins and developments, examining the background, key players, and outcomes of Article 18, and setting it within the broader discourse around international religious freedom in the 1940s. Taking issue with standard accounts that see the text of the Universal Declaration as humanity’s joint response to the atrocities of World War II, it shows instead how central features of Article 18 were intimately connected to the political projects and visions of particular actors involved in the start-up of the UN Human Rights program. This will be essential reading for anyone grappling with the historical and contemporary meaning of human rights and religious freedom.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

“Religion as Empowerment” (Topidi & Fielder, eds.)

In May, Routledge will release “Religion as Empowerment: Global Legal Perspectives,” edited by Kyriaki Topidi (University of Lucerne) and Lauren Fielder (University of Texas).  The publisher’s description follows:

This volume shows how and why legal empowerment is important for those exercising their religious rights under various jurisdictions, in conditions of legal pluralism. At routlogothe same time, it also questions the thesis that as societies become more modern, they also become less religious.

The authors look beyond the rule of law orthodoxy in their consideration of the freedom of religion as a human right and place this discussion in a more plurality-sensitive context. The book sheds more light on the informal and/or customary mechanisms that explain the limited impact of law on individuals and groups, especially in non-Western societies. The focus is on discussing how religion and the exercise of religious rights may or may not empower individuals and social groups and improve access to human rights in general.

This book is important reading for academics and practitioners of law and religion, religious rights, religious diversity and cultural difference, as well as NGOs, policy makers, lawyers and advocates at multicultural jurisdictions. It offers a contemporary take on comparative legal studies, with a distinct focus on religion as an identity marker.

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McCrudden & O’Leary, “Courts and Consociations”

This May, Oxford University Press will publish Courts and Consociations: Human Rights versus Power-Sharing by Christopher McCrudden (Queen’s University, Belfast & University of Michigan Law School) and Brendan O’Leary (Queen’s University, Belfast).  The publisher’s description follows.Courts

Consociations are power-sharing arrangements, increasingly used to manage ethno-nationalist, ethno-linguistic, and ethno-religious conflicts. Current examples include Belgium, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Burundi, and Iraq. Despite their growing popularity, they have begun to be challenged before human rights courts as being incompatible with human rights norms, particularly equality and non-discrimination.

Courts and Consociations examines the use of power-sharing agreements, their legitimacy, and their compatibility with human rights law. Key questions include to what extent, if any, consociations conflict with the liberal individualist preferences of international human rights institutions, and to what extent consociational power-sharing may be justified to preserve peace and the integrity of political settlements.

In three critical cases, the European Court of Human Rights has considered equality challenges to important consociational practices, twice in Belgium and then in Sejdic and Finci v Bosnia regarding the constitution established for Bosnia Herzegovina under the Dayton Agreement. The Court’s decision in Sejdic and Finci has significantly altered the approach it previously took to judicial review of consociational arrangements in Belgium. This book accounts for this change and assess its implications. The problematic aspects of the current state of law are demonstrated. Future negotiators in places riven by potential or actual bloody ethnic conflicts may now have less flexibility in reaching a workable settlement, which may unintentionally contribute to sustaining such conflicts and make it more likely that negotiators will consider excluding regional and international courts from reviewing these political settlements.

Providing a clear, accessible introduction to both the political use of power-sharing settlements and the human rights law on the issue, this book is an invaluable guide to all academics, students, and professionals engaged with transitional justice, peace agreements, and contemporary human rights law.

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Ellis, Emon, & Glahn (eds.), “Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law”

In September, Oxford University Press will publish Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law edited by Mark S. Ellis (Executive Director, International Bar Association), Anver M. Emon, (University of Toronto Faculty of Law), and Benjamin Glahn (Former Program Director, Salzburg Global Seminar). The publisher’s description follows.

The relationship between Islamic law and international human rights law has been the subject of considerable, and heated, debate in recent years. The usual starting point has been to test one system by the standards of the other, asking is Islamic law ‘compatible’ with international human rights standards, or vice versa. This approach quickly ends in acrimony and accusations of misunderstanding. By overlaying one set of norms on another we overlook the deeply contextual nature of how legal rules operate in a society, and meaningful comparison and discussion is impossible. Read more