Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
In United States v. Harris, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals deliberated on whether a defendant, charged with threatening a federal judge and declared incompetent for trial, could be involuntarily medicated despite his religious objections as a Jehovah’s Witness. The court recognized the importance of religious liberty in this context, concluding that it could be considered a “special circumstance” in deciding the permissibility of involuntary medication, according to Supreme Court precedent in Sell v. United States.
In Foshee v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, a Maryland federal court dismissed a religious discrimination claim under Title VII by two employees seeking a religious exemption from a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The court found that their objections, based on what plaintiffs assert was guidance from God or the Holy Spirit and personal concerns about the vaccine, were not strictly religious but intertwined with secular reasons, thus not qualifying for a religious exemption. The court emphasized that their beliefs, being “not subject to any principled limitation in…scope,” amounted to an unverifiable “blanket privilege” not strictly religious in nature.
In Hilsenrath v. School District of the Chathams, a New Jersey court reaffirmed its prior decision stating that a 7th grade curriculum on Islam did not violate the Establishment Clause. The court, after a reconsideration prompted by the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, emphasized that the educational materials were not coercively promoting religious establishments forbidden by the First Amendment, leading to a ruling in favor of the school board.
In Gospel Light Mennonite Church Medical Aid Plan v. New Mexico Office of the Superintendent of Insurance, a New Mexico federal district court declined to order an injunction that would prevent the state’s insurance superintendent from regulating Health Care Sharing Ministries (HCSMs), cost-sharing organizations intended to cut medical expenses for members. The plaintiffs argued that an official press release, which warned consumers about HCSMs and declared their plans unauthorized insurance products, showed a form of official disapproval of their religious beliefs. However, the court disagreed, and using rational basis review, found that state laws requiring compliance with the Insurance Code were justified and evinced a legitimate governmental concern.
In The Matter of James Hogue v. Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York, the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division upheld the denial of Hogue’s request for a religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccination mandate for New York City Department of Education employees. It ruled that Hogue failed to prove his objection was based on sincere religious beliefs and that granting an exemption would impose undue hardship on the Department of Education. The court dismissed Hogue’s other arguments, including a lack of cooperative dialogue and issues of timeliness in the appeal process.
In Supriyo @ Supriya Chakraborty v. Union of India, India’s Supreme Court declined to recognize same-sex marriages, aligning with government and religious leaders who opposed the petitions. The Court concurred that the power to legislate on marriage resides with the parliament, not the judiciary. The petitioners had advocated for the modification of the Special Marriage Act to be more inclusive by using the term “spouse” instead of specifying gender. Despite refusing to legalize same-sex marriages, the Court did urge the government to explore and implement extended rights and privileges for same-sex couples, suggesting the formation of a committee to examine this prospect.
Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
In St. Augustine School v. Underly, the 7th Circuit addressed a long-standing dispute over transportation benefits for private religious schools in Wisconsin. While a state statute allows these benefits for only one school from a single organizational entity in each district, the court had previously ruled that the state Superintendent wrongfully denied St. Augustine School these benefits. However, in the latest decision, the 7th Circuit declined to address federal constitutional issues the plaintiffs raised, emphasizing that the court would not provide an advisory opinion on an unnecessary theory, and upheld the district court’s declaratory judgment without an injunction or damages.
In Spirit of Aloha Temple v. County of Maui, a Hawaii federal district court ruled in favor of the Spirit of Aloha Temple regarding their special use permit on agriculturally-zoned land for religious purposes. The court decided the state did not meet the strict scrutiny standard, but other issues, including whether the denial imposed a significant religious burden, remained unresolved. The case emphasizes that under RLUIPA, there must be evidence of intent to discriminate when regulations are neutral.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Denver and two Catholic schools filed a lawsuit in Colorado federal district court against restrictions in Colorado’s universal preschool funding program. The suit, St. Mary Catholic Parish in Littleton v. Roy, argues that the program’s conditions infringe on their free exercise and free speech rights by not allowing preference for Catholic families and imposing non-discrimination requirements that conflict with Catholic teachings. The program’s rules also challenge the schools’ stances on matters of marriage, gender, sexuality, and biological sex-based regulations.
In Chesley v. City of Mesquite, a Nevada federal district court dismissed former police chief Joseph Chesley’s lawsuit against the city and its former city manager for circulating damaging rumors about him, including to his church members. Chesley claimed that the rumors and the city’s failure to stop them violated his free exercise rights by tarnishing his reputation within his church and hindering his worship experience. The court rejected this claim, noting that the subjective harm to his reputation didn’t amount to a “substantial burden” on his religious rights.
In Cristello v. St. Theresa School, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Catholic school that terminated an unmarried art teacher who became pregnant, due to her violation of an employment agreement to abide by the teachings of the Catholic Church, which agreement prohibited premarital sex. The teacher had claimed pregnancy and marital status discrimination under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD). The court determined that the school was protected by the LAD’s exception for religious organizations, asserting that such decisions can be made using neutral principles of law without entangling courts in religious matters.
Following accusations of blasphemy against a young Christian man, a mob in Faisalabad, Pakistan, attacked multiple Christian homes and churches, setting them ablaze. The outburst of violence was triggered when torn pages from the Quran with alleged blasphemous content were found near the Christian community, leading local religious leaders to call for protests.
The Nicaraguan government has seized the University of Central America, a prominent Jesuit-run institution, alleging it to be a “center of terrorism.” This move is the latest in a series of crackdowns on the Catholic Church, opposition figures, and academic institutions by President Ortega’s regime, with over 26 Nicaraguan universities confiscated since December 2021. The widespread confiscations and expulsions, targeting churches, civic groups, and opposition members, reflect a broader erosion of democratic norms and a suppression of civil society in Nicaragua.
The idea that Europe, at least Western Europe, is “post Christian” is not a new one. The phrase typically means that Christianity no longer is the default option for Western Europeans. In the new Europe, Christianity is just one of many religious and non-religious commitments out there. One such commitment, of course, is Islam, the religion of millions of people who live in Western Europe today. A new collection from Bloomsbury, Islam, Religious Liberty, and Constitutionalism in Europe, explores the challenges that Islam poses to church-state relations in contemporary Europe. The editors are our friend Mark Hill (Cardiff University) and Lina Papadopoulou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki); one of the contributors is our friend and Tradition Project member, Andrea Pin (Padova). Looks very worthwhile. The publisher’s description follows:
For centuries, since the Roman Empire’s adoption of Christianity, the continent of Europe has been perceived as something of a Christian fortress. Today, the increase in the number of Muslims living in Europe and the prominence of Islamic belief pose questions not only for Europe’s religious traditions but also for its constitutional make up. This book examines these challenges within the legal and political framework of Europe.
The volume’s contributors range from academics at leading universities to former judges and politicians. Its twenty chapters focus on constitutional challenges, human rights with a focus on religious freedom, and securitisation and Islamophobia, while adopting supranational and comparative approaches.
This book will appeal not merely to law students in the United Kingdom and the European Union, but to anyone involved in diplomacy and international relations, including political scientists, lobbyists, and members of NGOs. It explores these contested relationships to open up new spaces in how we think about religious freedom and co-existence in Europe and the crucial role that Islam has had, and continues to have, in its development.
Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
The 9th Circuit heard oral arguments in Catholic Healthcare International, Inc. v Genoa Charter Township, Michigan, a RLUIPA case stemming from the organization’s construction of religiously symbolic structures on a property without the Township’s approval, contrary to the Township’s instruction that such construction would be classified as a special land use requiring specific approval.
In Kariye v. Mayorkas, a California Federal District Court dismissed a case brought forward by three Muslim plaintiffs who claimed their rights were violated by religious questioning at US ports of entry. Rejecting the plaintiffs’ Establishment Clause and Free Exercise claims, the court cited “historical practices” at the border and “maintaining border security” as compelling government interests.
Suit was filed in a Pennsylvania federal district court on behalf of two parochial school students and their parents challenging a school district policy that allows home school and charter school students to participate in the district’s extracurricular and co-curricular activities but does not allow private and parochial school students to do the same. The plaintiffs argue that the exclusion of religious parochial schools infringes on their free exercise and equal protection rights.
In In re Matyas v. Board of Education, a New York trial court dismissed a teacher’s objections to the Department of Education’s refusal to exempt her from its Covid vaccine mandate. The teacher, citing her Catholic faith and recent conversion to an unspecified Evangelical Protestant sect, argued that her religious beliefs prevented her from receiving any vaccination. The court ruled that she failed to demonstrate that the city’s vaccine mandate was based on religion or that her views on vaccinations were an established doctrine in either Catholicism or Evangelical Protestantism.
In a historic Vatican trial, prosecutor Alessandro Diddi is defending his charges against 10 figures, including Cardinal Angelo Becciu, over alleged financial crimes. The trial exposes the alleged misuse of the Pope’s funds in speculative investments, such as a $390 million London real estate venture. Cardinal Becciu is additionally accused of misappropriating Vatican funds for personal use and paying ransom fees.
Iraqi security forces dispersed protesters seeking to reach the Danish Embassy in Baghdad, following reports of a Quran being burned in Denmark. The incident follows similar protests at the Swedish Embassy, which was set alight due to a planned Quran burning in Stockholm. Despite Denmark’s Foreign Minister condemning the act as an attempt to create division, he notes that burning religious books is not a crime in Denmark.
Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the United States Supreme Court held 6-3 that the 1st Amendment’s free speech clause prohibit Colorado from requiring that a website designer create websites for same-sex weddings contrary to her religious beliefs.
In Groff v. DeJoy, a religious accommodation case under Title VII, a unanimous Supreme Court clarified that “undue hardship” exists where “‘a burden is substantial in the overall context of an employer’s business.'”
In Fox v. Washington, the 6th Circuit held that the Michigan Department of Corrections must recognize “Christian Identity” as a religion for purposes of the Michigan prison system.
In Goldstein v. Hochul, a federal court in New York refused to issue a preliminary injunction in a challenge to New York’s 2022 Concealed Carry Improvement Act, which bans carrying firearms in “any place of worship or religious observation.” The suit was filed by an Orthodox Jewish congregation, its president, and Jewish residents of New York who say that they have carried handguns for self-defense in synagogues.
In Doe v. Alpine School District, a federal court in Utah rejected claims by parents of a high school student that the school’s practice of giving students long periods of unsupervised time, during which the student had premarital sex with his girlfriend, violated their religious free exercise rights. The court found that although premarital sex is against the parents’ religious beliefs, the school did not coerce the student into violating the parents’ religious beliefs.
In Alulddin v. Alfartousi, an Arizona state appeals court held that civil courts can enforce an Islamic marriage contract’s dowry provision. The court found that in deciding the dowry provision was a valid premarital agreement, it did not violate the 1st Amendment’s free exercise clause.
The news last week that Saudi Arabia and Iran will restore diplomatic relations (a deal brokered by China, which fact raised eyebrows among American observers) is quite significant for the Mideast. Although both are Islamic-law countries, they are serious rivals–and part of the rivalry stems from religion. Saudi is a majority Sunni country and Iran a majority Shia one. But religion makes up only part of the story of their rivalry, as a new book from Cambridge, The Struggle for Supremacy in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia and Iran, points out. The author is Simon Mabon (International Politics) at Lancaster University. Here’s the description from the Cambridge website:
Since 1979, few rivalries have affected Middle Eastern politics as much as the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. However, too often the rivalry has been framed purely in terms of ‘proxy wars’, sectarian difference or the associated conflicts that have broken out in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen. In this book, Simon Mabon presents a more nuanced assessment of the rivalry, outlining its history and demonstrating its impact across the Middle East. Highlighting the significance of local groups, Mabon shows how regional politics have shaped and been shaped by the rivalry. The book draws from social theory and the work of Pierre Bourdieu to challenge problematic assumptions about ‘proxy wars’, the role of religion, and sectarianism. Exploring the changing political landscape of the Middle East as a whole and the implications for regional and international security, Mabon paints a complex picture of this frequently discussed but oft-misunderstood rivalry.
Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
In Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. v. Abbott, the Fifth Circuit held the FFRF’s lawsuit challenging the exclusion of one of its displays at the state capitol was moot, as the Texas State Preservation Board had repealed the law allowing private displays. The court stated that “the Foundation’s injury is premised on exclusion from expressing its message in a public forum, and because the public forum no longer exists, the permanent injunctive relief ordered by the district court cannot remain.”
In Alive Church of the Nazarene, Inc. v. Prince William County, Virginia, the Fourth Circuit rejected a church’s challenges to zoning restrictions that prevented the church from using its property for religious services. The Fourth Circuit rejected the church’s RLUIPA claims, as well as its Equal Protection, Free Exercise, and Peaceable Assembly challenges to the zoning restrictions.
In a Mississippi federal district court case, the parties in L.B. v. Simpson County School District have reached a settlement. As part of the settlement, the Simpson County School District has agreed to change its policy that prohibited a 3rd-grade student from wearing a face mask with the phrase “Jesus Loves Me” on it. Additionally, the school district will pay $45,000 and allow the student to wear her mask.
The US Department of Health and Human Services has proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act that would eliminate the current exemption for employers and schools that have moral, as opposed to religious, objections to covering contraceptive services.
The chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities sent a letter to House and Senate sponsors of the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act” (H.R.7 and S.62) in support of the legislation. The act would make long-standing prohibitions on federal funding of elective abortion permanent and government-wide, rather than depending on various appropriations.
The Australian Law Reform Commission, an independent Australian government agency, has released a Consultation Paper on Religious Educational Institutions and Anti-Discrimination Laws. The Consultation Paper suggested proposals that would “make discrimination against students on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or relationship status, or pregnancy in schools and other religious educational institutions unlawful” while also allowing “religious schools to maintain their religious character by permitting them to . . . give preference to prospective staff on religious grounds where the teaching, observance, or practice of religion is a part of their role.”
At the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, D.C., Beth Van Schaack, the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice, spoke regarding the “two contemporary genocides” of Muslims worldwide. Van Shaack voiced her support for the international community’s drafting of a crimes against humanity statute that would enable these crimes to be prosecuted in the International Crimes Court.
Former CLR Fellow Jessica Wright ’14 began her legal career in Kabul, Afghanistan where she worked with a team of local and international lawyers on Afghan commercial and tax law matters, as well as Rule of Law Initiatives. She also served as a legal advisor to the Office of the President, and was an adjunct professor of law at the American University of Afghanistan. Now a litigation associate at DLA Piper in New York, Jessica reflects in this important post on the dire events unfolding in Afghanistan, and what the return of the Taliban means for the Afghan people.
* * *
“It’s nearly spring again, and I’m still in Afghanistan, almost inexplicably. American airstrikes in the provinces are shifting Taliban sights on the cities, they say, and foreigners are advised to leave. Progress in law and institution building ebbs and flows, as do the foreign monies for projects, as do the people who run them in short, detached tours. Life is cyclical for almost everyone, turning in tedium or tragedy depending on whether one’s aim is a project benchmark or simply reaching home across town, unscathed.”
I wrote those words in the spring of 2018, just before I left Afghanistan for the last time. The Taliban’s spring offensive was about to begin, and I faced a direct threat from the ISI-backed Haqqani network. In truth, though, even then, Kabul didn’t feel like a war zone for more than a few days or hours at a time, and I always knew that if things went south, I could be on the next flight out. Expats are privileged to live with a sense of detachment in places like Afghanistan – we can view everyday life with its bomb blasts and security threats as a story to tell instead of a reality to live. Still, proximity to war changes the way we understand conflict – it personalizes the fight and deepens the relationships forged with a place and a people.
The speed at which the Taliban has advanced across Afghanistan in the last week has shocked nearly everyone I know, from seasoned journalists to well-connected Afghan politicians. Ten provincial capitals were seized by the Taliban in just six days: Shebergan, Sar-e pul, Kunduz, Taluqan, Aybak, Pul-e Khumri, and Faizabad in the north, Farah in the west, and Zaranj and Ghazni in the south. Understanding that the war in the provinces had definitively moved to the cities, Afghan friends began sending panicked messages asking for advice and visa references and Embassy contacts, hoping that with a little luck they could still make it out. Then, on August 13, two major cities fell: Herat, a vital cultural and economic hub on the border with Iran, and Kandahar, an important city in the southern Pashtun heartland. In quick succession, Mazar-i Sharif, the last holdout in the north, fell on August 14, and on Saturday, the Taliban took Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, cutting off Kabul from the east. Entire Afghan units surrendered to the Taliban, knowing that without U.S. support they could no longer continue to fight. Others laid down their arms in protest, unwilling to risk their lives on the battlefield for a hopeless cause and a government in shambles.
Colleagues on the ground in Kabul have reported a massive influx of refugees from the provinces. They tell stories of families weeping outside embassy gates and passport offices, desperately seeking a way out of the country. Many others have set up mattresses and makeshift tents in the local parks knowing they have nowhere else to run. As the weekend wore on, locals rushed to stock up on food and other necessities, and all the while American Chinooks and Black Hawks flew overhead at constant, regular intervals, serving as a brutal reminder that as foreigners escaped to safety, Afghans were trapped on the ground to face their fate alone.
On Sunday, as the Taliban continued its advance toward Kabul, President Ashraf Ghani and Vice President Amrullah Saleh relinquished power and fled the country, signaling the collapse of the Afghan government. In a post on his Facebook page, Ghani stated, “To avoid bloodshed, I thought it would be better to leave.” Shortly thereafter, Dr. Abdullah, the former Chief Executive Officer of Afghanistan, who remains in the country, sent a message to the people of Afghanistan asking them to stay calm. He assured them that “God will make [Ghani] accountable.” Former President Karzai, who also remains in Kabul, posted a photo of himself and his daughters with a message to the Taliban, asking them to provide security and safety for the people. The Taliban said they would not take Kabul by force, but when they reached the outskirts of the city on Sunday evening, they began making their way in to “prevent lawlessness.” Judging by the messages from my Afghan friends and colleagues, the mood had shifted from quiet panic to stoic resignation. They told me that the American flag at the U.S. Embassy had been taken down, and that the massive Afghan flag atop Wazir Akbar Khan hill was removed by the Taliban shortly thereafter. They sent pictures of Taliban leaders inside the Presidential Palace – once a serene fortress – and reported that groups of fighters were milling about on the streets carrying their distinctive white flag bearing the shahadah: “I bear witness that none deserves worship except God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God.” It felt as if everyone was holding their breath, expecting the bloodshed to start at any moment but still hoping, desperately, for some other outcome.
It is not yet clear what a Taliban regime will mean for the people of Afghanistan, but according to analysts, the insurgent group, ousted from power 20 years ago by a U.S.-led invasion, has been growing stronger for the last two decades, and the methods they employ to govern will likely be as brutal as they have been in the past. The Taliban has run a shadow state for years in the southern provinces, and residents of those areas report that gruesome beatings and executions remain commonplace. Researchers point out that the Taliban’s leadership has become savvier, which may in part account for its ability to seize the Afghan capital, but they caution that such change does not necessarily translate to more lenient rule.
* * *
Islam has always been at the center of the lives of the Afghan people. In fact, a form of Sharia or Islamic law governed the legal process in Afghanistan until 1925. Traditional Islam in Afghanistan meant minimum government with little interference in people’s lives; everyday decisions were carried out by elders in the tribe and the community.” It was not until 1925 that King Amanullah introduced the first civil legal code, and not until 1946 that a Sharia faculty was set up at Kabul University, allowing an integration of traditional Sharia with modern law. “Another moderating factor for Islam in Afghanistan was the enormous popularity of Sufism, the trend of mystical Islam,” which is built on prayer, contemplation, music, and a “permanent quest for truth” (Ahmed Rashid describes Sufism and Islam in Afghanistan in his book, Taliban, from which the quotes in this section are taken).
The “austere Wahabbi creed of Saudi Arabia,” which opposed mystical Sufism, gained some traction in Afghanistan, but Islamic extremism had never flourished in earnest before the Taliban. There were indeed several traditional political Islamic movements, some of which sought a type of Muslim internationalism that would unite the ummah or Muslim world, and to achieve their political ends, “parties like the Pakistani Jamaat and Hikmetyar’s Hizb-e-Islami set up highly centralized modern parties organized along communist lines with a cell system, extreme secrecy, political indoctrination, and military training.” These movements were led by radical Islamicists, but they could be considered rather modern and forward-looking in comparison to the Taliban.
The Taliban’s interpretation of Islam, jihad, and social transformation echoes none of the Islamicist trends in Afghanistan. Rather, the Taliban’s particular interpretation of Islam stems from the teachings of semi-educated mullahs in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), who trained generations of Afghans in rural madrassas. Their interpretation of Sharia is heavily influenced by Pashtunwali, the tribal code of the Pashtuns, and the madrassas themselves were funded and influenced by Saudi Arabian Wahhabists. The Taliban are not advocates of learning or reform, and they accept “no concept of doubt except as sin and consider debate as little more than heresy.” In addition, the Taliban tend to be “poorly tutored in Islamic and Afghan history, knowledge of the Sharia and the Koran and the political and theoretical developments in the Muslim world during the twentieth century.”
When the Taliban first entered Kabul in 1996, the religious police beat men and women in the streets for not having long enough beards and for wearing the burka improperly. An intelligence agency was formed and staffed with thousands of professional spies and paid informers. Anyone who questioned the Taliban’s edicts were said to have questioned Islam itself and were punished severely. The Taliban massacred ethnic and religious minorities, and its subjugation of women was total. Their regime was built entirely on what amounted to myth: particularized beliefs, fears, and ideologies that had nothing to do with Islam itself or with Afghan cultural norms. The Taliban’s ban on every form of entertainment, for example, was based on the belief that entertainment, particularly music, strained the mind and hampered the study of Islam.
In recent years, the Taliban have sought to project a more moderate image and have shown some flexibility in their application of Sharia. In an Eid holiday message in May, the Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada stated, “The Islamic Emirate seeks cordial and positive relations based on mutual respect and good conduct with all neighboring, regional and world countries.” Many caution, however, that while Taliban leaders have become more adept politicians, they have not changed their goal of reinstating an Islamic emirate with the repressive laws and retrograde policies the world has seen before. As it currently stands, foreign powers have little to no leverage when it comes to ensuring that international humanitarian law is followed and that the rights and freedoms of the people are protected.
* * *
What is happening in Afghanistan feels deeply personal to me. I have taught and worked with and come to know the vibrant younger generation of Afghans who desire peace and have worked, relentlessly, for a stable democracy. What will become of them now? Will they be able to study at university and operate businesses and run for office? Will Afghan journalists be able to publish stories, unfettered, or will the press become a propaganda arm of the new regime? And what about the women and girls? Will they be relegated to the home and denied an education and a livelihood? Will those intelligent, driven women who became law firm partners and political activists and influential artists be silenced and made to live a life in the shadows? These questions haunt me, and I struggle to imagine the Kabul I knew transformed into the bastion of a merciless Taliban state.
It is difficult to connect to tragedies from which we are far removed, but it is important to look to Afghanistan now. All of us would do well to remember that the Afghan people have suffered generation after generation of warfare and humanitarian crises, all at the hands of foreign powers. And there are dark days ahead.
In my experience, the Western human-rights community overlooks, or downplays, human rights documents that come from non-Western sources. A good example is the Cairo Declaration, a statement of human rights announced by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 1990: few human-rights courses in American law schools spend significant time on the Cairo Declaration, notwithstanding its importance in global human-rights debates. That may be because these non-Western sources offer a challenge to Western understandings of “universal” concepts like human dignity. But I’ve written about that subject elsewhere.
Here is a new collection about the OIC from Penn Press, The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Human Rights, edited by Marie Juul Petersen (Danish Institute of Human Rights) and Turan Kayaoglu (University of Washington – Tacoma). The publisher’s description follows:
Established in 1969, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is an intergovernmental organization the purpose of which is the strengthening of solidarity among Muslims. Headquartered in Jeddah, the OIC today consists of fifty seven states from the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The OIC’s longevity and geographic reach, combined with its self-proclaimed role as the United Nations of the Muslim world, raise certain expectations as to its role in global human rights politics. However, to date, these hopes have been unfulfilled. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Human Rights sets out to demonstrate the potential and shortcomings of the OIC and the obstacles on the paths it has navigated.
Historically, the OIC has had a complicated relationship with the international human rights regime. Palestinian self-determination was an important catalyst for the founding of the OIC, but the OIC did not develop a comprehensive human rights approach in its first decades. In fact, human rights issues were rarely, if at all, mentioned at the organization’s summits or annual conferences of foreign ministers. Instead, the OIC tended to focus on protecting Islamic holy sites and strengthening economic cooperation among member states. As other international and regional organizations expanded the international human rights system in the 1990s, the OIC began to pay greater attention to human rights, although not always in a manner that aligned with Western conceptions.
This volume provides essential empirical and theoretical insights into OIC practices, contemporary challenges to human rights, intergovernmental organizations, and global Islam. Essays by some of the world’s leading scholars examine the OIC’s human rights activities at different levels—in the UN, the organization’s own institutions, and at the member-state level—and assess different aspects of the OIC’s approach, identifying priority areas of involvement and underlying conceptions of human rights.
