20/05/2024 11:00 - 12:00

HALL: LA PIRA - ROOM 2

Proponent: Creemers J.

Chair: Creemers J.

Speaker: Creemers J., Kopaleishvili T., Madera A.

This panel addresses the question to what extent, and, if so, how, religious freedom is still to be
defended and promoted today. The right to freedom of religion or belief (FORB) is enshrined in all
authoritative human rights (HR) treaties and most liberal constitutions. In the last decades, however,
this right has been challenged from various disciplinary angles. The impossibility to define religion is
said to obstruct religious freedom as a juridical category (Sullivan 2018). Problematic political
instrumentalizations of religious freedom discourses are documented (e.g., Sullivan 2014; Mahmood
2015). And the HR framework as a whole is being theologically critiqued as a deeply secular ethical
framework (e.g., in Witte 2015). Defenders of FORB, on the other hand, have long considered it as a
'mother of many other rights' (Jellinek 1895). They point to its continuing importance in view of a
global rise of religiously oriented/motivated persecution and discrimination, problematic political
reconfigurations, as well as FORB's role as custodian against a sacralization of the HR framework
(e.g., Bielefeldt & Wiener 2020).
The panel aims to enrich and bring nuance to this ongoing debate and shifting paradigms related to
FORB. We invite scholars from all disciplines to offer fresh input, such as theoretical considerations,
case studies, or critical suggestions regarding promotion of FORB and the roles of different actors
(educators, politics, courts, NGO's,…) today.