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The recent creation of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations constituted another opportunity for the United States to take positive leadership towards a greater level of human rights implementation.  This opportunity for significant and timely paradigm shift has passed with too little fanfare.  The US refusal to run for election to the HRC, while not a crippling blow, does deprive it of the influence of the most powerful nation in the world.  The US’ ability and willingness to evade scrutiny of its human rights record is an important symbolic setback for human rights progress.  This most recent disappointing performance leaves a leadership vacuum which other less powerful nation-states are unlikely to fill.  <br />Are nation-states willing to or capable of generating a shift towards more complete fulfillment of global human rights?  If not, what other actors might take a “prime mover” role?   <br />Market forces are hugely important and dynamic actors, both globally and locally.  Businesses considered as a whole are immensely powerful in the lives of ordinary people and in global scope and influence.  However they don’t consistently act for the benefit of human rights at a global level because of their great heterogeneity, their motives, and their origins.  Economic institutions that interact directly with global markets are primarily concerned with nation-states development and trade policies.  These bodies pressure some nation-states to improve their human rights records.  However, the current major bodies depend on nation-states to enforce their rulings or provide their funding.  Furthermore their influence is reduced vis-à-vis more powerful nation-states, and their direct interaction with local communities is limited.  The help and participation of the international business community is vital, but cannot be relied upon as the catalyst for a paradigm shift in human rights implementation. <br />Religious institutions are uniquely situated to influence human rights implementation because of the function they perform – describing right and wrong conduct, the way things are and the way they should be.  The sheer numbers of people in the major world religions gives them potential to influence global human rights.  Religions engage in intensely localized action which is crucial for tangible human rights work.  They also possess a guiding structure which is necessary to achieve more equitable distribution of rights for all.  People are capable of influencing their surroundings, and religious belief structures can help to synchronize their efforts for change in a positive way.  <br />It is therefore necessary to describe and analyze how effective religious institutions might be in achieving increased human rights implementation.  Significant hurdles include at least current and past violent conflicts between people of different faiths, clashing belief structures, intolerance and extremism within religious groups, and the problem of influencing a diverse group of believers to perform any distinct action as a whole.  Unfortunately, religions have historically generated a great deal of human suffering, as well as advances in human rights.  <br />One way for religious institutions to influence a shift to greater human rights implementation is in acting as an organized moral restraint for governments.  This paper will attempt to identify areas in which the major religions have commonalities which are promising for joint human rights actions.  Additionally, it will include a focus on methods which religious groups have used to influence their governments for the purpose of bringing about positive change.

Human rights and religion can very often be seen as reinforcing one another. Therefore, religion plays a primordial role in promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. For example, moral imperatives like “do not take any human being's life” or “you shall not steal” can be found in all major religions of the world, and have acted as an inspiration for the fundamental laws made by man. <br />None the less, religious laws can also contradict man-made laws and human rights treaties. Just to take one example, according to the Christian faith it is impossible for a woman to become a priest, while multiple human rights treaties clearly prohibit discrimination between the sexes. <br />It is precisely in such contentious matters that the national State will often intervene, granting preferential treatment to either religious laws or man-made treaties. The State, however, when it does interfere, has to do so in a very careful way, for one fundamental right is the right to religious freedom. The State will therefore frequently have to try to strike a balance between this right and other human rights concerned. <br />One regional convention safeguarding both religious rights like freedom of religion and religious practice, as other fundamental rights, is the European Convention of Human Rights, which we will explore in this paper. States that are members of the Council of Europe and parties to this convention will have to try to find a balance while being watched by an observant European Court of Human Rights. Thus the task of finding a balance between these rights has in Europe ultimately been given to the European Court, and its case-law is especially illuminating on the very relation between these rights. Looking at this jurisprudence will enable us to find out how the relationship between religious rights and other fundamental freedoms is perceived in the European Human Rights system. One essential question that arises, is in what manner and to what extent the Court allows for limitations and exceptions on/to other human rights when it comes to religious matters. For example, can one’s personal freedom be limited in order to preserve someone else’s religious beliefs? Does the European Court deviate from its normal course of action when faced with religious cases? Does such a religious context constitute “special circumstances” that allow for a different treatment, and if so, can this be justified? And on the other hand, what are the ultimate boundaries that other human rights put on religion, religious rights and traditions? Where is the line drawn? <br />The purpose of this study is to explore the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in search of an answer to this fundamental question. Rather than solely concentrating on the right to freedom of religion of article 9 ECHR, this paper will focus more on those other human rights contained in the Convention when they seem to conflict with the said right to religious freedom, and in a broader scope, with other religious rights, laws and practices. The jurisprudence of the Court, which seems to take a very nuanced position in such matters, will be examined. A study of this case-law will not only be helpful to explore the status of religious rights as compared to other fundamental rights, but may also be a source of inspiration for the international human rights system to promote concord between the different religions. Studying the way in which the European Court handles such cases will also lead us to new ideas on how to implement human rights in different religious cultures, while respecting diversity and religious freedom. In sum, exploring this human rights system will provide answers to the above posed questions, which shall lead us to new ideas on the tremendous important right to be protected in one’s religious freedom.

It is widely accepted that the freedom to practice one's religion, and to live according to one's religious beliefs, is a basic human right, and the key to peaceful coexistence among religious communities and among nations. In my paper I will focus on the problems that arise when sincerely held religious beliefs come into conflict with the rights of others. Recently in the United States, two such situations have received widespread attention. One case involves pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control pills, because they believe that the use of certain kinds of contraception violates their Christian religious beliefs. The other case involves Muslim taxicab drivers who refuse to transport passengers carrying alcohol for similar reasons. In response to such conflicts, religious tolerance is often embraced as a solution. In western society, the ideal of religious tolerance can be traced back at least to John Locke, and received considerable attention in the work of political philosopher John Rawls. In recent years, tolerance has been embraced as a public value through programs that teach tolerance in public schools. But the ideal of tolerance has also come under criticism from theorists such as Wendy Brown, professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley, and author of <em>Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire</em> (Princeton University Press).  Brown argues that tolerance is “an impoverished and impoverishing framework through which domestic, civil and international conflicts and events (are) formulated... The experience of being tolerated is inevitably one of being condescended to, of being forborne. The object of tolerance is constructed as marginal, inferior, other, outside the community, in some relation of enmity with the community.” Moreover, as the legal scholar Stanley Fish has noted, the doctrine of tolerance “legitimizes, and even demands, the exercise of <em>in</em>tolerance, when the objects of intolerance are persons who, because of their over-attachment to culture, are deemed incapable of being tolerant.”  What implications do these critiques of tolerance have for how we should address real-life cases of conflict between religious beliefs and the rights of others? “Obviously” as Wendy Brown points out, “it is always better to be tolerated than not, if those are the choices.” But I believe that there are possibilities that go beyond tolerance, that are based on dialogue. The importance of dialogue has been stressed by thinkers including Mohammed Khatami, and philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah of Princeton University, author of <em>Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers </em>(W.W. Norton).  I will argue that productive dialogue between different cultures, or even between different segments of a culturally diverse society, requires more than just reasoned argument. Rather, it requires a deeper conversation that develops an understanding of each other’s history and everyday life and strives for a level of mutual trust and respect. In my conclusion, I will discuss the ways in which this kind of dialogue between faiths can contribute to the cause of peace.