On Religious and Cultural Equality in European Human Rights Convention Law
| Date | 01 September 2014 |
| Author | Lourdes Peroni |
| DOI | 10.1177/016934411403200302 |
| Published date | 01 September 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Column |
Netherlands Qu arterly of Human Ri ghts, Vol. 32/3, 231–234, 2014.
© Netherlands I nstitute of Human Rig hts (SIM), Printed in the Net herlands. 231
COLUMN
ON RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL
EQUALITY IN EUROPEAN HUMAN
RIGHTS CONVENTION LAW
L P*
Like many other contemporar y societies, European societies a re inescapably diverse.
e phenomenon is of course far from new. Europe has long been religiously and
culturally diverse. Yet, in post-World War II decades, diversity has broadened and
deepened in ways that pose new challenges to the law. One of the sites where these
challenges have been most vividly felt is European Human Rights Convention Law.
In recent decades, people from di erent religious and cultural backgrounds have
increasingly turned to the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) in search
of prot ectio n for asp ects o f thei r relig ion or cu lture . Clai ms have come fr om Sik h men
wanting to wear a turban, Roma members seeking to preserve a travelling lifestyle,
migrants looking for recognition of forms of family life outside the nuclear model,
and Muslim women battling ba ns on full veils.
As new issues enter the legal arena, human rights scholars strive to come to
grips with a reality where religious and cultural variations abound not only across
but also within groups. One pressing question is whether European Human Rights
Convention Law can attend to human rights claims arising from this cultural and
religious diversity in more inclusive a nd egalitarian ways.
E orts to answer this question may look at the potential of the European
Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’) to attend to claims of this nature. One
may point for example to provisions like freedom of religion, the right to respect for
family life and non-discrimination as instances of norms through which religious
and cultural group members may channel their demands. One may also point to
the rights that the Court has read into some ECHR provisions, such as the right to
respect for one’s cultural lifestyle and the right to conscientious objection. One may
even look at the extent to which inst ruments like the Council of Eu rope’s Framework
Convention for the Protection of National Minorities have been integrated into the
ECHR and resulted in a more robust protection of religious and cultural minorities.
All these e orts are certa inly crucial.Yet they are insu cient to address the question
* Lourdes Peroni (LL .M., Harvard Law Sc hool; Ph.D. in Law, Ghent University) is a research er at the
Human Right s Centre of Ghent University.
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