Pamela Slotte

Securing Freedom whilst Enhancing Competence: The “Knowledge about Christianity, Religions and Life Stances” Subject and the Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights

In an attempt to accommodate the increasing religious and cultural diversity in European societies, religious instruction in public schools is being rearranged across Europe. However, the issue is sensitive owing to the societal matters involved, such as multiculturalism, minority issues, nationalism, and citizenship. A crucial question is how religious instruction can be organized in public (state-funded) schools so as to conform to fundamental human rights. The European Court of Human Rights has also recently dealt in Folgero and Others v. Norway with an ambitious attempt to introduce compulsory non-confessional religious instruction in public schools with the aim of enhancing dialogue and cultural understanding and take into account the future status of children as adult members of both national and international societies. Dividing children into separate study groups according to their faith had been dismissed as a form of segregation and parallel multiculturalism. This article focuses on Folgero and Others v. Norway. What is at stake in the argumentation before the European Court of Human Rights, and how does it reason concerning religion and life-views, religious freedom and the aims of religious instruction in public schools? Based on this analysis, the article discusses what it means that a conflict over what constitutes adequate religious instruction is brought to a legal forum and the consequences this has for what will be understood as acceptable instruction.

Waving the 'Freedom of Religion or Belief ' Card, or Playing It Safe: Religious Instruction in the Cases of Norway and Finland

In order to gain an understanding of what it means to have a human right to freedom of religion or belief, one has to start by looking at the different actual conflicts that give rise to discussion in terms of such a human right. Different conflicts reveal different problems. It is therefore unsatisfying to attempt to essentialise the human right to freedom of religion or belief, and simply apply it to different cases. There are, for example, various ways of organising religious instruction in public schools. Neutrality consists in presenting these models and conflicts, not in saying that there is one right or wrong answer. This, of course, does not exclude critical examination and discussion. This article examines one model attempting to accommodate religious freedom within a public education system while including religious instruction on the curriculum, and juxtaposes it to a second model of organizing religious instruction that has given rise to conflict. The models discussed have different problems and potentials. However, both trigger a critical analysis of how law perceives religion, especially religious manifestation and, within this framework, what it means to be a religious person. The analysis offers a contribution to ongoing debates about how to understand the human right to freedom of religion or belief.

The Juridification of Religion

This article sets out to explore the extent to which developments currently taking place at the interface between law and religion in domestic, regional and international law can be conceptualized as instances of larger, multidimensional processes of juridification. We rely on an expansive notion of juridification, departing from the more narrow sense of juridificiation as the gradually increasing “colonization of the lifeworld” proposed by Jurgen Habermas in his Theory of Communicative Action (1987; Vol. 2, Beacon Press). More specifically, the article adapts the multidimensional notion of juridification outlined by Anders Molander and Lars Christian Blichner in their article ‘Mapping Juridification’ (2008; 14 European Law Journal 36), and develops it into a more context-specific notion of juridification that is attendant to the specific nature of religion as a subject matter for law.

Lobbying for relevance: American internationalists, French civil libertarians and the UDHR

As a new week dawns, yet another session by some UN human rights monitoring body or other opens. Every detail of the session replicates what an outsider imagines UN ‘human rights in action’ to look like. The session is arranged perhaps at the Palais Wilson, headquarters of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that once hosted the League of Nations, and is characterized by ornate staircases, carved ceilings and a striking view of the Lac Léman with the city of Geneva glittering in the background. During sessions one sees a steady flow of state delegates, representatives of NGOs from all corners of the world as well as staff from the UN secretariat. Jointly they bring ‘the international’ alive, giving it a ‘face’ that is every bit as diverse as the universal ethos of human rights discourse suggests. However, as tangible as the (racial) diversity of participants becomes, closer examination overshadows it with a distinct sameness. For, although they may have diverse geographic origins, in many ways the individuals present are similar to each other: they are fluent in the same expert jargon of human rights – and often in many other languages too – they are widely travelled and highly educated. They are worldly, ‘modern’, exquisite in their tastes; they are the epitome of cosmopolitan (the person, not the drink). Whether due to the understated elegance of their expensive handbags, or stories of their favoured exotic dishes, airlines or holiday destinations, it is evident that they belong to the same socio-economic elite membership in which is a practical prerequisite for gaining access to the professional community of UN human rights experts and advocates.