Our research will be published in two academic articles.
These will be published, alongside other FoRB related articles produced by colleagues, in a special volume of the Review of Faith and International Affairs. These will be accessible in November from the following site: www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfia20/16/3.
Our two articles are:
- FoRB across the Commonwealth: hard cases, diverse approaches
- Progress on FoRB? An analysis of European and north American government and parliamentary initiatives
Thematics: Human rights and FoRB
“All human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated”
Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, 1993
Since human rights are interdependent and interrelated, it is important to study them in ways that demonstrate how they rely and relate to each other. The danger of studying one human right at a time is that the way that right affects or is affected by another right in any given situation may not be properly understood. Thematic notes allow us to explore the interdependence and interrelatedness between the freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) and other rights.
"Quiet" approach to FoRB
While FoRB is often central to human rights violations, approaching the violation through an explicitly FoRB lens may occasionally exacerbate the situation. For example, emphasising the role of religious identity in a human rights issue might solidify group boundaries and entrench religious identity in a manner that perpetuates the violations. Moreover, political figures may seek to take advantage of increasing religious identity conflict, which might encourage religious groups to support violence against rival religious groups. Thus using a more general human rights lens to discuss the violations may occasionally be more useful. Meanwhile, other rights, such as the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to security of the person, the freedom from torture, and the freedom from arbitrary arrest, could also be invoked instead of or in combination with FoRB when a person from a particular religious background faces a human rights violation.
Below are detailed briefings on how FoRB intersects with particular themes: