The Scope and Limits of the Freedom of Religion in International Human Rights Law
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
Abstract
The article examines the practice of the applicability of the Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (hereinafter—ICCPR) and Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereinafter—ECHR). Through the case—law of the European Court on Human Rights (hereinafter—ECtHR) and insights of the Human Rights Committee the author is investigating the content and limits of the freedom of religion. The article examines in detail the limiting clauses to the freedom of belief (national security, public order, public health, public morals) and the possibility to apply derogation clause. The author comes to the conclusion that due to the complexity of this right it is difficult to forecast the future developments of this right. The jurisprudence of the ECtHR is numerous as well as the decisions of the Court are often accompanied by dissenting opinions. Moreover, some potential cases related to the freedom of religion are not considered by the ECtHR as the admissibility criteria are not met. Therefore the author looks forward to the forthcoming jurisprudence of both—regional and universal human rights bodies.
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##
Section
Articles
This is an open-access journal, which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or their institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This follows the BOAI definition of open access. Authors contributing to Jurisprudence agree to publish their articles under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public (CC BY) License (applicable from 2025).
Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to the Association for Learning Technology.
Please see Copyright and Licence Agreement for further details.