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Projecting a global interdisciplinary vision, this insightful book develops a peer-to-peer learning methodology to facilitate reconciling religion and human rights, both in multilateral contexts and at the national level. Written by leading human rights practitioners, the book illuminates the tension zones between religion and rights, exploring how the ‘faith’ elements in both disciplines can create synergies for protecting equal human dignity.
This volume offers a many-sided introduction to the theme of Christianity and international law. Using a historical and contemporary perspective, it will appeal to readers interested in key topics of international law and how they intersect with Christianity.
Holy sites are often at the center of intense contestation between different groups regarding a wide variety of issues, including ownership, access, usage rights, permissible religious conduct, and many others. They are often the source intractable long-standing conflicts and extreme violence. These difficulties are exemplified by the five sites profiled in Governing the Sacred Devils Tower National Monument (Wyoming, US), Babri Masjid/Ram Janmabhoomi (Uttar-Pradesh, India), the Western Wall (Jerusalem), the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Jerusalem), and the Temple Mount/Haram esh-Sharif (Jerusalem). Telling the fascinating stories of these high-profile contested sites, the authors develop and critically explore five different models of governing such sites: "non-interference," "separation and division," "preference," "status-quo," and "closure." Each model relies on different sets of considerations; central among them are trade-offs between religious liberty and social order. This novel typology aims to assist democratic governments in their attempt to secure public order and mutual toleration among opposed groups in contested sacred sites.
This commentary on freedom of religion or belief provides a comprehensive overview of the pressing issues of freedom of religion or belief from an international law perspective.
Scholars and analysts seeking to illuminate the extraordinary creativity and innovation evident in European medieval cultures and their afterlives have thus far neglected the important role of religious heresy. The papers collected here - reflecting the disciplines of history, literature, theology, philosophy, economics and law - examine the intellectual and social investments characteristic of both deliberate religious dissent such as the Cathars of Languedoc, the Balkan Bogomils, the Hussites of Bohemia and those who knowingly or unknowingly bent or broke the rules, creating their own 'unofficial orthodoxies'. Attempts to understand, police and eradicate all these, through methods such as the Inquisition, required no less ingenuity. The ambivalent dynamic evident in the tensions between coercion and dissent is still recognisable and productive in the world today.
Going beyond the more usual focus on Jerusalem as a sacred place, this book presents legal perspectives on the most important sacred places of the Mediterranean. The first part of the book discusses the notion of sacred places in anthropological, sociological and legal studies and provides an overview of existing legal approaches to the protection of sacred places in order to develop and define a new legal framework. The second part introduces the meaning of sacred places in Jewish, Christian and Islamic thought and focuses on the significance and role that sacred places have in the three major monotheistic religions and how best to preserve their religious nature whilst designing a new inte...
Each from their own discipline and perspective, these scholars contribute to the question of whether, in the present-day pluralist state, there is room for state symbolism or personal religious signs or attire in the public school classroom.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will be a topic for academic research for years to come. This collection brings together international scholars from various disciplines to analyse the impact of the pandemic on both religious freedom and on religious community life in Europe. Divided into two parts, the first focuses on theoretical considerations, while the second explores local challenges and includes case studies from countries with different socio-political profiles. The book includes critical evaluations of public crisis management of religious communities during the pandemic, as well as critical reflections on religious freedom appeals in such crisis. In sum, the volume probes and challenges scholars and students of law, religion, politics, and sociology to go beyond the typical oppositions in considering Freedom of Religious Belief in the current secular European context. The work will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and policy-makers working in the areas of Law and Religion, Human Rights Law, Sociology, and Political Science.
Defensive Relativism describes how governments around the world use cultural relativism in legal argument to oppose international human rights law. Defensive relativist arguments appear in international courts, at the committees established by human rights treaties, and at the United Nations Human Rights Council. The aim of defensive relativist arguments is to exempt a state from having to apply international human rights law, or to stop international human rights law evolving, because it would interfere with cultural traditions the state deems important. It is an everyday occurrence in international human rights law and defensive relativist arguments can be used by various types of states. ...