Cumper, Peter --- "Religion, Belief and International Human Rights in the Twenty-first Century" [2010] ELECD 207; in Joseph, Sarah; McBeth, Adam (eds), "Research Handbook on International Human Rights Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Human Rights Law

Editor(s): Joseph, Sarah; McBeth, Adam

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847203687

Section: Chapter 18

Section Title: Religion, Belief and International Human Rights in the Twenty-first Century

Author(s): Cumper, Peter

Number of pages: 25

Extract:

18. Religion, belief and international human
rights in the twenty-first century
Peter Cumper



1 Introduction
From time immemorial human beings have sought to comprehend and cele-
brate the metaphysical.1 It is thus perhaps unsurprising that, of all the human
rights accorded contemporary legal recognition, freedom of religion (and
equivalent belief) has been described as the one with the longest lineage.2 That
said, with organised religion seemingly in decline in the West,3 and a relative
paucity of literature in the field of religious human rights,4 one might be
tempted to assume that religious belief is of little contemporary relevance.
However, any such suggestion would be false. Matters pertaining to religion
or belief have, in recent years, clearly had an impact on international affairs,
leading to claims that there has even been a `desecularisation of the world'.5
The influence of religion in the global arena is evidenced in at least three
respects. First, religious belief has increasingly played a significant role in
international politics,6 a by-product of what some refer to as the rise of `funda-
mentalism'.7 Secondly, mass immigration and demographic changes have put


1 See, for example, Karen Armstrong, A History of God (Heinemann, London,
1993).
2 See Paul Sieghart, The International Law of Human Rights (Clarendon Press,
Oxford, 1983) 324.
3 See Steve Bruce, God is Dead: Secularism in the West (Blackwell, Oxford,
2002).
4 Prior to the last two decades, very little was written on religious human rights.
Whilst ...