Nazila Ghanea

DOI: 10.1093/ojlr/rwr029

This article will argue that although, historically, religious minorities were the primary trigger for the institutionalization of the international framework of minority rights, they have long since been sidelined from its protections. This sidelining is evident in a variety of international human rights norms and mechanisms, the focus below being on the jurisprudence of the UN Human Rights Committee. The article offers a number of explanations for this diversion of religious minorities away from the international minority rights regime. It also argues for a cautious reintegration of religious minorities within the minority rights regime after having sought understanding with regard to some issues of concern.

ISBN: ISSN 2047-0770

DOI: 10.1163/157181110X512151

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.

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 (i) taken to include persons belonging to minorities on grounds of both religion or belief; (ii) that their religious practice should not only be considered ‘manifestation’ of religion or belief but also the practice of a minority culture; and that (iii) 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.

ISBN: ISBN 978-90-04-19521

The protection of the human rights of all without discrimination on the basis inter alia of religion or belief, the protection of religious minorities, and manifestation of religion or belief in association with others - these are all well-established norms of international human rights law. Yet violations continue world-wide, and new manifestations of these age-old problems continue to multiply.[1] All Muslim states have ratified, and therefore voluntary adopted, legal commitments with regards to these obligations. Nevertheless, these protections remain very much wanting in many instances with respect to both Muslim and non-Muslim minorities in Muslim states. In fact, freedom of religion or belief and religious minority rights have long been recognised as being amongst the most pressing of human rights concerns in these states. Whilst the need to enhance the protection of freedom of religion or belief and religious minority rights (ForbRM rights) within Muslim states has been much written about, few publications have extended their focus to Muslim minorities in Muslim states. This article seeks to establish that enhanced respect for the legal rights of non-Muslim minorities would, by default, also benefit ‘Muslim minorities’ within Muslim states. The contention of this article is that if sufficient progress were made regarding the respect of ForbRM rights for non-Muslims, Muslim religious minorities would see their own situations improved and claims addressed. The article will take one of the most entrenched of such cases – snapshots of the case of the Bahá’ís of Iran over the past 30 years – as its main illustration of this point.