Religious Freedom and Human Rights



Religious Freedom and Human Rights

Religious freedom has been asserted as a human right under international laws through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination based on Religion or Belief. In addition, religious leaders from different traditions have affirmed their support for religious freedom as a fundamental human right. (Janos 1995)

Growing Acceptance of Religion and Human Rights

Today, responding to the growing acceptance of international human rights instruments, the growth of secularist rather than religious beliefs in the West, worldwide population movements that have resulted in religiously diverse societies and the demise of most militantly atheist regimes, many countries are seeking to assure freedom of religion and belief in their societies. In practice, this is resulting in increasing separation of religion and state, although not necessarily following the United States model.

The history of these changes provides some fascinating episodes in the search for ways to accommodate religious diversity. In his 1960 report to the United Nations on religious freedom, the Indian scholar Arcot Krishnaswami reports that twenty-three centuries ago, King Asoka, patron of Buddhism, recommended tolerance to his subjects, on the grounds that

Acting thus, we contribute to the progress of our creed by serving others.

More recently, in 1998, through the International Religious Freedom Act (the "IRFA"), the United States government adopted another approach to the promotion of religious freedom. The IRFA makes the enforcement of religious freedom through various diplomatic and economic measures a major component of the foreign policy of the United States, the world's most powerful nation. No other nation has yet taken such a position. These two approaches, namely that of Krishnaswami and the United States Government, are very different in time and tone. The first emphasizes the need for the community to examine, debate, and accept common rules, and the full title of the Act reads "An Act to establish an Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring, to provide for the imposition of sanctions against countries engaged in a pattern of religious persecution and for other purposes."

Twentieth Century Religious Freedom

Moving now to the end of the twentieth century, we are confronted by a very different stage. Religious freedom is now a subject of international debate and foreign, rather than solely domestic, policy. Religious pluralism is no longer a question of accepting differences within Puritanism or even within Christianity, but of the coexistence of all the world's different religions and beliefs. There is an international bill of human fights that defines in basic terms the nature of fights, including freedom of religion and belief, and the obligation of the world's states to enforce them domestically and internationally. In the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the "UDHR"), today "[e]veryone has the fight to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to ...