Nazila Ghanea

Minorities and Hatred: Protections and Implications

The international concern with minorities has benefitted from a range of rationales and gone through a number of permutations over recent decades. Within these are included a wide spectrum of objectives from concern with their very obliteration covered under genocide instruments to soft law instruments concerned with their positive flourishing. This article will address just one aspect of those concerns – those protecting minorities from hate speech.

Apostasy and Freedom to Change Religion or Belief

The Catholic Encyclopedia defines apostasy as “the desertion of a post, the giving up of a state of life.”1 Furthermore, it distinguishes apostasy from heresy, stating, “The heretic differs from the apostate in that he only denies one or more of the doctrines of revealed religion, whereas the apostate denies the religion itself, a sin which has always been looked upon as one of the most grievous.”2 The gravity of the sin seems to be due to the enormity of concern with a one-time believer knowingly turning away from the truth. Hence, it is considered to be of a much greater order than mere unbelief.

Expression and Hate Speech in the ICCPR: Compatible or Clashing?

This article aims to revisit the content and scope of Articles 19 and 20 of the ICCPR in an effort to better understand the relationship between them. Such navigation is essential in order to examine the duties these two articles imply for States Parties to the ICCPR and the protections that flow therefrom.

Faith in Human Rights, Human Rights in Faith

In recent years the lexicon of human rights2 has gained widespread currency in international affairs. International human rights standards have been put forward as: ‘the central criteria of political legitimacy’,3 a criterion with which domestic and foreign policies should be reconciled, a standard for civilisation,4 an ethical basis for governance, ‘a means of empowerment against oppression by States’5 and, ‘the strongest ethical language that exists’.6 With the parallel increase in the assertion of religion onto the international agenda,7 the question emerges of how religion and human rights react to one another. Will both crusading normative projects collaborate in the provision of a common grounding for a new mindset, or degenerate in a cold war of words over their notional normative space in the international arena?

The challenge of religious discrimination at the dawn of the new millennium

Acknowledgements, Introduction ,Kevin Boyle, Chapter 1. The 1981 UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief: Some Observations, Nazila Ghanea, Chapter 2. The Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Carolyn Evans, Chapter 3. The Dimensions and Dynamics of Religious Discrimination: Findings and Analysis from the UK, Paul Weller, Chapter 4. A Human Rights Framework for Defining and Understanding Intra-Religious Persecution in Muslim Countries, Mohamed S.M. Eltayeb, Chapter 5. Faith in Human Rights, Human Rights in Faith, Nazila Ghanea, Chapter 6. Believing in Communities, European Style, Malcolm D. Evans, Chapter 7. Religious Discrimination in Britain: New Opportunities and Fresh Challenges within Employment, Peter Cumper, Chapter 8. Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion or Belief in the Context of Recent Social and Political Changes in the Netherlands, Cornelis D. de Jong, Chapter 9. Fidei Defensor Revisited: Church and State in a Religiously Plural Society, Michael Ipgrave, Chapter 10. The Place of Muslims in British Secular Multiculturalism,Tariq Modood, Appendix, UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Bibliography, Index.

Religious Organizations and the Impact of Human Rights and Equality Laws in England and Wales

ABSTRACT The framework for equality and the multiple aspects of identity that are protected in law, including on the basis of religion and belief, are continuously being redefined and reshaped through ongoing legal claims in England and Wales. In this article, we examine how religious organizations view equality and the extent to which different identity rights can be protected. We conducted a survey of religious organizations in England and Wales to examine attitudes and experiences in relation to changes in the equality laws. We found that equality is variously understood and many religious organizations give only limited recognition to certain legally protected characteristics including gender, sexual orientation and also the identities of other religious organizations. If the integration of equality in the form of identity rights is to be fully achieved within the legal framework of a liberal democratic state and alongside so-called British values, both religious and non-religious citizens alike need to take a greater responsibility for the understanding and recognition of identity differences. Equalities legislation is creating a constitutional framework for citizenship and it is important this new citizenship is structured around equality in practice at the individual and organizational level.

Fighting Religious Intolerance and Discrimination: The UN Account

The main United Nations (UN) global policy framework for combating religious intolerance, stigmatisation, discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against persons based on religion or belief is set down in UN Human Rights Council resolution 16/18. Adopted in March 2011, this resolution was hailed by stakeholders from all regions as a turning point in international efforts to confront religious intolerance. After more than five decades, UN member states had, it was hoped, at last come together to agree a common, consensus-based approach and practical plan of action. Some four years on, and against the backdrop of heightened religious hostility, UN consensus around the ‘16/18 framework’ continues to be contested. Rather than working together to implement the 16/18 action plan, states have returned to pre-2011 arguments over the nature of the problem. These divisions have re-emerged in large part because of conceptual confusion among policymakers about what implementation of resolution 16/18 means and what it entails. Linked to (and indeed flowing from) this conceptual opacity, states—especially states from the Western Group (WEOG) and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)—contend over whether resolution 16/18 is being effectively implemented or not and, if not, why this is so. This article offers an assessment of levels of implementation of resolution 16/18 as well as recommendations for strengthened compliance in the future.

Religious Minorities and Human Rights: Bridging International and Domestic Perspectives on the Rights of Persons Belonging to Religious Minorities under English Law

This paper considers minorities in English law through the prism of international standards related to both freedom of religion or belief, and minority rights. These two sets of international normative standards are brought together in order to emphasize the fact that persons belonging to religious minorities have access not only to general human rights standards including freedom of religion or belief, but also to minority rights. Combining the implications of these applicable rights, the paper will suggest that religious minorities‘ should be (A) taken to include persons belonging to minorities on grounds of both religion or belief; (B) that their religious practice should not only be considered manifestation‘ of religion or belief but also the practice of a minority culture; and that (C) states have a duty to protect the survival and continued development of the identity of religious minorities and allow such persons to enjoy their culture. The paper will then move to considering a few recent cases in English law, in order to examine the extent to which these three implications are realized within them.

Religious Pluralism and Human Rights in Europe: Where to Draw the Line? Religion, Secular Beliefs and Human Rights, 25 Years After the 1981 Declaration

These two books address the vexing question of human rights and freedom of religion or belief essentially in two different contexts and from two different perspectives: the European and the international. They do so in a broad manner, addressing the social, political, legal and policy implications of religion at large as well as freedom of religion or belief itself. From an overview of both, it can be seen that neither minority rights, cultural rights, freedom of expression nor freedom of association compensate the absence of freedom of religion or belief in human rights terms.

A review of the sixty-first session of the commission on human rights

Abstract This report seeks to analyse the main highlights of this years session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The Commission was set up in 1947 and is the UNs principal human rights body. It is currently the subject of major reform proposals stemming primarily from the UN Secretary-General and agreed upon, in general terms by member states at the 14–16 September 2005 World Summit. The review below, focusing on the main country and thematic issues discussed at the March–April 2005 session, will be indicative of how badly and in what ways reform of the Commission on Human Rights is required.