This book analyses the right to religious freedom within international law. Analysing legal structures in a variety of both Western and non-Western jurisdictions, the book sets out a topography of the different constitutional structures of religion within the state and their compliance with international human rights law. The book also considers the position of women's religious freedom vis a vis community claims of religious freedom. Taking a rigorous approach to the right, Anat Scolnicov argues that the interpretation and application of religious freedom must be understood as a conflict between individual and group claims of rights, and argues for an individualistic interpretation of this right.

Religious discrimination is the norm in many countries around the world, and the rate is rising. Nearly every country which discriminates does so unequally, singling out some religious minorities for more discrimination than others. Religious tradition does not explain this complex issue. For example, Muslim majority states include both the most discriminatory and tolerant states in the world, as is also the case with Christian majority states. Religious ideologies, nationalism, regime, culture, security issues, and political issues are also all part of the answer. In The Unfree Exercise of Religion Jonathan Fox examines how we understand concepts like religious discrimination and religious freedom, and why countries discriminate. He makes a study of religious discrimination against 597 religious minorities in 177 countries between 1990 and 2008. While 29 types of discrimination are discussed in this book, the most common include restrictions in places of worship, proselytizing, and religious education.

This is the first global examination of the historical relationship between Christianity and human rights in the twentieth century. Leading historians, anthropologists, political theorists, legal scholars, and scholars of religion develop fresh approaches to issues such as human dignity, personalism, religious freedom, the role of ecumenical and transatlantic networks, and the relationship between Christian and liberal rights theories. In doing so they move well beyond the temporal and geographical limits of the existing scholarship, exploring the connection between Christianity and human rights, not only in Europe and the United States, but also in Africa, Latin America, and China. They offer alternative chronologies and bring to light overlooked aspects of this history, including the role of race, gender, decolonization, and interreligious dialogue. Above all, these essays foreground the complicated relationship between global rights discourses - whether Christian, liberal, or otherwise - and the local contexts in which they are developed and implemented.

This book analyzes the promotion and protection of freedom of religion in the international arena with a particular focus on the role and influence of the US International Religious Freedom Act, 1998. It also investigates the impact of the IRFA on the legislation and policies of third countries and the EU. The book develops the story of the protection of religious freedom through foreign policy by showing how religious laws affect and shape a more communitarian dimension of the notion of freedom of religion which stands in contrast with a traditionally Western individualistic understanding of the right. It is argued that it is still possible to defend the unstable category of freedom of religion or belief especially when major violations are at stake. The book presents a balanced contribution to the academic debate on the promotion and protection of religious freedom. The comparative approach and interdisciplinary methodology make it a valuable resource for academics, students and policy-makers in Law, International Relations and Strategic Studies.

This book examines the origins of Australia's constitutional religious freedom provision. It explores, on the one hand, the political activities and motives of religious leaders seeking to give the Australian Constitution a religious character and, on the other, the political activities and motives of a religious minority seeking to prevent the Australian Constitution having a religious character. The book also interrogates the argument advanced at the Federal Convention in favour of section 116, dealing with separation of religion and government, and argues that until now scholars and courts have misunderstood that argument. The book casts new light to show how the origins of the provision lead to section 116 being conceptualised as a safeguard against religious intolerance on the part of the Commonwealth. Written in an accessible style, the work has potential to influence the development of constitutional doctrine by the High Court through its challenge of historical assumptions on which the High Court's current doctrine is based. Given the ongoing political debates concerning the interaction of discrimination law and religious freedom, the book will be of interest to academics and policy-makers working in the areas of law and religion, constitutional law and comparative law.

In this Element, I introduce the socio-legal study of politics of rights as the theoretical framework to understand rights in the culturally and politically diverse region of Southeast Asia. The politics of rights framework is empirically grounded and treats rights as social practices whereby rights' meanings and implications emerge from being put into action or mobilised. I elaborate on the concepts underlying politics of rights and develop an analysis of rights in Southeast Asia using this framework. The analysis focusses on: what are the structural conditions that influence the emergence of rights mobilisation? How do people mobilise rights and what forms does rights mobilisation take? What are the consequences of rights mobilisation and how do we assess them? I hope that this view of politics of rights - from a Global South region and from the ground - can encourage more astute evaluations of the power of rights.

Throughout its history the Catholic Church has taken positions on many subjects that are in one sense political, but in another sense are primarily moral, such as contraception, homosexuality, and divorce. One such issue, abortion, has split not only the United States, but Catholics as well. Catholics had to confront these issues within the framework of a democratic society that had no official religion. Abortion, Religious Freedom, and Catholic Politics is a study of opposing American Catholic approaches to abortion, especially in terms of laws and government policies. After the ruling of Roe vs. Wade, many pro-life advocates no longer felt their sentiments and moral code aligned with Democrats. For the first time, Catholics, as an entire group, became involved in U.S. politics. Abortion became one of the principal points of division in American Catholicism: a widening split between liberal Catholic Democrats who sought to minimize the issue and other Catholics, many of them politically liberal, whose pro-life commitments caused them to support Republicans. James Hitchcock discusses the 2016 presidential campaign and how it altered an already changed political landscape. He also examines the Affordable Care Act, LGBT rights, and the questions they raise about religious liberty.

In both Europe and North America it can be argued that the associational and institutional dimensions of the right to freedom of religion or belief are increasingly coming under pressure. This book demonstrates why a more classical understanding of the idea of a liberal democracy can allow for greater respect for the right to freedom of religion or belief. The book examines the major direction in which liberal democracy has developed over the last fifty years and contends that this is not the most legitimate type of liberal democracy for religiously divided societies. Drawing on theoretical developments in the field of transnational constitutionalism, Hans-Martien ten Napel argues that redirecting the concept and practice of liberal democracy toward the more classical notion of limited, constitutional government, with a considerable degree of autonomy for civil society organizations would allow greater religious pluralism. The book shows how, in a postsecular and multicultural context, modern sources of constitutionalism and democracy, supplemented by premodern, transcendental legitimation, continue to provide the best means of legitimating Western constitutional and political orders.

Islam is a growing presence practically everywhere in Europe. In Italy, however, Islam has met a unique model of state neutrality, religious freedom and church and state collaboration. This book gives a detailed description of the legal treatment of Muslims in Italy, contrasting it with other European states and jurisprudence, and with wider global tendencies that characterize the treatment of Islam. Through focusing on a series of case studies, the author argues that the relationship between church and state in Italy, and more broadly in Europe, should be reconsidered both to secure religious freedom and general welfare. Working on the concepts of religious freedom, state neutrality, and relationship between church and state, Andrea Pin develops a theoretical framework that combines the state level with the supranational level in the form of the European Convention of Human Rights, which ultimately shapes a unitary but flexible understanding of pluralism. This approach should better accommodate not just Muslims' needs, but religious needs in general in Italy and elsewhere.

The question of to what extent, manifestations of religious beliefs should be permitted in the European public sphere has become a salient and controversial topic in recent years. Despite the increasing interest however, debates have rarely questioned the conventional wisdom that an increase in the range of security measures employed by a government inevitably leads to a decrease in the human rights enjoyed by individuals. This book analyses the relationship between state security regime changes and the right to religious freedom in the EU. It presents a comparative analysis of the impact these regime changes have had on the politics, policies and protections of religious freedom across the EU member states in the post-2001 environment. The book provides a timely investigation into the role of national legislation, the European Court of Human Rights, and societal trends in the protection of religious freedom, and in so doing demonstrates why the relationship between state security and religious freedom is one of the most socially significant challenges facing policymakers and jurists in Europe at the present time.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution begins: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Taken as a whole, this statement has the aim of separating church and state, but tensions can emerge between its two elements-the so-called Nonestablishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause-and the values that lie beneath them. If the government controls (or is controlled by) a single church and suppresses other religions, the dominant church's "establishment" interferes with free exercise. In this respect, the First Amendment's clauses coalesce to protect freedom of religion. But Kent Greenawalt sets out a variety of situations in which the clauses seem to point in opposite directions. Are ceremonial prayers in government offices a matter of free exercise or a form of establishment? Should the state provide assistance to religious private schools? Should parole boards take prisoners' religious convictions into account? Should officials act on public reason alone, leaving religious beliefs out of political decisions? In circumstances like these, what counts as appropriate treatment of religion, and what is misguided? When Free Exercise and Nonestablishment Conflict offers an accessible but sophisticated exploration of these conflicts. It explains how disputes have been adjudicated to date and suggests how they might be better resolved in the future. Not only does Greenawalt consider what courts should decide but also how officials and citizens should take the First Amendment's conflicting values into account.

Drawing on the critical and theoretical concepts of sovereignty, biopolitics, and necropolitics, this book examines how a normative liberal and secular understanding of India s religious identity is translatable by Hindu nationalists into discrimination and violence against minoritized religious communities. Extending these concepts to an analysis of historical, political and legal genealogies of conversion, the author demonstrates how a concern for sovereignty links past and present anti-conversion campaigns and laws.

The book illustrates how sovereignty informs the making of secularism as well as religious difference. The focus on sovereignty sheds light on the manner in which religious difference becomes a point of reference for the religio-secular idioms of Bombay cinema, for legal judgements on communal violence, for human rights organizations, and those seeking justice for communal violence. This wide-ranging examination and discussion of the trajectories of (anti) conversion politics through historical, legal, philosophical, popular cultural, archival and ethnographic material offers a cogent argument for shifting the stakes and rethinking the relationship between sovereignty and religious freedom. The book is a timely contribution to broader theoretical and political discussions of (post) secularism and human rights, and is of interest to students and scholars of postcolonial studies, cultural studies, law, and religious studies.

Through its close, critical reading of the political treatises and polemical literature produced in France in the sixteenth century, this book offers a valuable new contribution to the intellectual history of the Early Modern era. Sophie Nicholls analyses the political thought of the theologians and jurists in the Holy League as they pursued their crusade against heresy in the French kingdom, during the wars of religion (1562-1629). Contemporaries portrayed the Leaguers as rebellious anarchists, who harboured dangerously democratic ideas. In contrast, Nicholls demonstrates that the intellectuals in the movement were devoted royalists, who had more in common with their moderate counterparts, the 'politiques'. In paying close attention to the conceptual language of politics in this era, this book shows how jurists and theologians in the League presented visions of sovereignty that subtly replenished medieval ideas of kingship and priesthood, and endeavoured to replace them with a new synthesis of intellectual tradition and political power. In a period when 'the state' was still emerging as an idea, analysing League thought in the context of Jesuit and Second Scholastic sources positions the Leaguers in relation to innovative attempts in European Catholic circles to re-think the nature of belonging to a political community.

A vivid and fast-paced history, Gary May's Bending toward Justice offers a dramatic account of the birth and precarious life of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It is an extraordinary story of the intimidation and murder of courageous activists who struggled to ensure that all Americans would be able to exercise their right to vote. May outlines the divisions within the Civil Rights Movement, describes the relationship between President Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr., and captures the congressional politics of the 1960s. Bending toward Justice is especially timely, given that the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 invalidated a key section of the Voting Rights Act. As May shows, the fight for voting rights is by no means over.

Voices of Freedom: The Middle East and North Africa showcases essays from activists, journalists, novelists, and scholars whose areas of expertise include free speech, peace and reconciliation, alterity-otherness, and Middle Eastern and North African religions and literatures. Co-edited by TCU colleagues Rima Abunasser and Mark Dennis, the volume is meant to serve as a vehicle for giving dignity and depth to the peoples of these regions by celebrating courageous voices of freedom trying to respond to fundamental, often devastating, changes on the ground, including the Arab Spring, the Syrian refugee crisis, and the rise of the Islamic State. Writing in both the first- and third-person, essayists offer deeply moving portraits of voices that cry out for freedom in chaotic, and often violent, circumstances. Voices of Freedom is aimed at college classes that address the many ways in which freedom intersects with politics, religion, and other elements in the societies of these dynamic and diverse regions. It will serve as a valuable primary source for college teachers interested in exploring with their students the struggle for freedom in non-Western and transnational cultural contexts. The volume is also meant to attract other audiences, including readers from the general public interested in learning about inspirational people from parts of the world about which Americans and other English-speaking peoples are generally unfamiliar.

Emma Goldman's Supreme Court appeal occurred during a transitional point for First Amendment law, as justices began incorporating arguments related to free expression into decisions on espionage and sedition cases. This project analyzes the communications that led to her arrest-writings in Mother Earth, a mass-mailed manifesto, and speeches related to compulsory military service during World War I-as well as the ensuing legal proceedings and media coverage. The authors place Goldman's Supreme Court appeal in the context of the more famous Schenck and Abrams trials to demonstrate her place in First Amendment history while providing insight into wartime censorship and the attitude of the mainstream press toward radical speech.

The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons (LGBT) are strongly contested by certain faith communities, and this confrontation has become increasingly pronounced following the adjudication of a number of legal cases. As the strident arguments of both sides enter a heated political arena, it brings forward the deeply contested question of whether there is any possibility of both communities' contested positions being reconciled under the same law. This volume assembles impactful voices from the faith, LGBT advocacy, legal, and academic communities - from the Human Rights Campaign and ACLU to the National Association of Evangelicals and Catholic and LDS churches. The contributors offer a 360-degree view of culture-war conflicts around faith and sexuality - from Obergefell to Masterpiece Cakeshop - and explore whether communities with such profound differences in belief are able to reach mutually acceptable solutions in order to both live with integrity.

Religious terrorism poses a significant challenge for many countries around the world. Extremists who justify violence in God's name can be found in every religious tradition, and attacks perpetrated by faith-based militants have increased dramatically over the past three decades. Given the reality of religious terrorism today, it would seem counterintuitive that the best weapon against violent religious extremism would be for countries and societies to allow for the free practice of religion; yet this is precisely what this book argues. Weapon of Peace investigates the link between terrorism and the repression of religion, both from a historical perspective and against contemporary developments in the Middle East and elsewhere. Drawing upon a range of different case studies and quantitative data, Saiya makes the case that the suppression and not the expression of religion leads to violence and extremism, and that safeguarding religious freedom is both a moral and strategic imperative.

The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons (LGBT) are strongly contested by certain faith communities, and this confrontation has become increasingly pronounced following the adjudication of a number of legal cases. As the strident arguments of both sides enter a heated political arena, it brings forward the deeply contested question of whether there is any possibility of both communities' contested positions being reconciled under the same law. This volume assembles impactful voices from the faith, LGBT advocacy, legal, and academic communities - from the Human Rights Campaign and ACLU to the National Association of Evangelicals and Catholic and LDS churches. The contributors offer a 360-degree view of culture-war conflicts around faith and sexuality - from Obergefell to Masterpiece Cakeshop - and explore whether communities with such profound differences in belief are able to reach mutually acceptable solutions in order to both live with integrity.

Religious dimension of contemporary conflicts and the rise of faith-based movements worldwide require policymakers to identify the channels through which religious leaders can play a constructive role. While religious fundamentalisms are in the news every day, we do not hear about the potential and actual role of religious actors in creating a peaceful and just society. Countering this trend, Sandal draws attention to how religious actors helped prepare the ground for stabilizing political initiatives, ranging from abolition of apartheid (South Africa), to the signing of the Lome Peace Agreement (Sierra Leone). Taking Northern Ireland as a basis and using declarations and speeches of more than forty years, this book builds a new perspective that recognizes the religious actors' agency, showing how religious actors can have an impact on public opinion and policymaking in today's world.

This book examines the existing constitutional and legal system in England, Wales and Scotland, through the prism of its treatment of religion and belief. The study encompasses questions of Church/state relations, but pushes far beyond these. It asks whether the approach to religion which has spread out from establishment to permeate the whole legal framework is a cause of concern or celebration in relation to individual and collective freedoms. The primary focus of the work is the synergy between the religious dimension of the juridical system and the fundamental pillars of the Constitution (parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law, separation of powers and human rights). Javier Garcia Oliva and Helen Hall challenge the view that separation between public and religious authorities is the most conducive means of nurturing a free and democratic society in modern Britain. The authors explore whether, counter-intuitively for some, the religious dynamic to the legal system actually operates to safeguard liberties, and has a role in generating an inclusive and adaptable backdrop for our collective life. They suggest that the present paradigm brings benefits for citizens of all shades of religious belief and opinion (including Atheist and Humanist perspectives), as well as secondary advantages for those with profound beliefs on non-religious matters, such as pacifism and veganism. In support of their contentions, Garcia Oliva and Hall examine how the religious dimension of the legal framework operates to further essential constitutional principles in diverse settings, ranging from criminal to family law. In a groundbreaking move, the authors also set the legal discussion alongside its social and cultural context. They consider how the theological perspectives of the larger faith traditions might influence members' ideas around the key constitutional precepts, and they include extracts from interviews which give the personal perspective of more than 100 individuals on contemporary issues of law and religious freedom. These voices are drawn from a range of fields and positions on faith. While the authors are at pains to stress that these sections do not support or advance their legal or theological conclusions, they do provide readers with a human backdrop to the discussion, and demonstrate its crucial importance in twenty-first century Britain.

Despite President George W. Bush's assurances that Islam is a peaceful religion and that all good Muslims hunger for democracy, confusion persists and far too many Westerners remain convinced that Muslims and terrorists are synonymous. In the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11, the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the recent bombings in London, an unprecedented amount of attention has been directed toward Islam and the Muslim world. Yet, even with this increased scrutiny, most of the public discourse regarding Islam revolves around the actions of extremist factions such as the Wahhabis and al-Qa'ida. But what of the Islam we don't hear about?

As the second-largest and fastest-growing religion in the world, Islam is deemed by more than a billion Muslims to be a source of serenity and spiritual peace, and a touchstone for moral and ethical guidance. While extremists have an impact upon the religion that is wildly disproportionate to their numbers, moderates constitute the majority of Muslims worldwide. It is this rift between the quiet voice of the moderates and the deafening statements of the extremists that threatens the future of the faith.

In The Great Theft, Khaled Abou El Fadl, one of the world's preeminent Islamic scholars, argues that Islam is currently passing through a transformative period no less dramatic than the movements that swept through Europe during the Reformation. At this critical juncture there are two completely opposed worldviews within Islam competing to define this great world religion. The stakes have never been higher, and the future of the Muslim world hangs in the balance.

Drawing on the rich tradition of Islamic history and law, The Great Theft is an impassioned defense of Islam against the encroaching power of the extremists. As an accomplished Islamic jurist, Abou El Fadl roots his arguments in long-standing historical legal debates and delineates point by point the beliefs and practices of moderate Muslims, distinguishing these tenets from the corrupting influences of the extremists. From the role of women in Islam to the nature of jihad, from democracy and human rights to terrorism and warfare, Abou El Fadl builds a vital vision for a moderate Islam. At long last, the great majority of Muslims who oppose extremism have a desperately needed voice to help reclaim Islam's great moral tradition.

Freedom's Edge takes the reader directly into the heart of the debate over the relationship between religious freedom and LGBT and reproductive rights. The book explains these complex areas of law, and what is at stake in the battle to protect each of these rights. The book argues that religious freedom and sexual freedom share some common elements and that in most contexts it is possible to protect both. Freedom's Edge explains why this is so, and provides a roadmap for finding common ground and maximizing freedoms on both sides. The book will enable anyone with an interest in these issues to understand what the law actually teaches us about religious freedom, sexual freedom, and how they interact. This is important because what is often argued by partisans on both sides distorts the legal and cultural stakes, and diminishes the possibility of compromise.

Religious discrimination is the norm in many countries around the world, and the rate is rising. Nearly every country which discriminates does so unequally, singling out some religious minorities for more discrimination than others. Religious tradition does not explain this complex issue. For example, Muslim majority states include both the most discriminatory and tolerant states in the world, as is also the case with Christian majority states. Religious ideologies, nationalism, regime, culture, security issues, and political issues are also all part of the answer. In The Unfree Exercise of Religion Jonathan Fox examines how we understand concepts like religious discrimination and religious freedom, and why countries discriminate. He makes a study of religious discrimination against 597 religious minorities in 177 countries between 1990 and 2008. While 29 types of discrimination are discussed in this book, the most common include restrictions in places of worship, proselytizing, and religious education.

Meetings with remarkable activists since the 1960s American social change movements dominated the 1960s and 1970s, an era brought about and influenced not by a handful of celebrity activists but by people who cared. These history makers together transformed the political and spiritual landscape of America and laid the foundation for many of the social movements that exist today. Through a series of 43 vignettes-tight biographical sketches of the characters and intimate memories of her personal encounters with them-the author creates a collective portrait of the rebels, artists, radicals, and thinkers who through word and action raised many of the issues of justice, the environment, feminism, and colonialism that we are now familiar with. From Berkeley to Bolivia, from New York to New Mexico, a complex, multi-layered radical history unfolds through the stories and lives of the characters. From Marty Schiffenhauer, who fought through the first rent-control law in the United States, to Ponderosa Pine, who started the All-Species Parade and never wore shoes, to Dan and Patricia Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers and became life-long anti-war and antinuclear activists, the portraits bring out some of the vibrant, irreverent energy, the unswerving commitment, and the passion for life of these generations of activists. In our present moment, as many people find themselves in the streets protesting for the first time in their lives, In the Company of Rebels makes the connection to this relatively recent rebellious era. As the author comments on her own twenty-year old self, sitting at the counter of Cody's Books in Berkeley in the early 1970s, thrilled about the times but oblivious of the work that came before: "I didn't know anything about this courageous and colorful past. But now I know."