Belief, Law and Politics: What Future for a Secular Europe?

by Jørgen S Nielsen, Katayoun Alidadi, Marie-Claire Foblets, Zeynep Yanasmayan

Overview

This edited collection gathers together the principal findings of the three-year RELIGARE project, which dealt with the question of religious and philosophical diversity in European law. Specifically, it covers four spheres of public policy and legislation where the pressure to accommodate religious diversity has been most strongly felt in Europe: employment, family life, use of public space and state support mechanisms. Embracing a forward-looking approach, the final RELIGARE report provides recommendations to governance units at the local, national and European levels regarding issues of religious pluralism and secularism. This volume adds context and critique to those recommendations and more generally opens an intellectual discussion on the topic of religion in the European Union. The book consists of two main parts: the first includes the principal findings of the RELIGARE research project, while the second is a compilation of 28 short contributions from influential scholars, legal practitioners, policy makers and activists who respond to the report and offer their views on the sensitive issue of religious diversity and the law in Europe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472453488
Publisher:	Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Publication date:	12/28/2014
Series:	Cultural Diversity and Law in Association with RELIGARE
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Marie-Claire Foblets is Professor of Law at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and Director of the Department of Law & Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany. She has held various visiting professorships both within and outside Europe. She has conducted extensive research and published widely on issues of migration law, including the elaboration of European migration law after the Treaty of Amsterdam, citizenship/nationality laws, compulsory integration, anti-racism and non-discrimination. In the field of the anthropology of law, her research focuses on cultural diversity and legal practice, with a particular interest in the application of Islamic family law in Europe, and more recently in the accommodation of cultural and religious diversity under state law.

Katayoun Alidadi is a legal scholar affiliated with the Leuven Institute for Human Rights and Critical Studies at the KU Leuven, Belgium. She is co-editor, together with Marie-Claire Foblets and Jogchum Vrielink, of A Test of Faith? Religious Diversity and Accommodation in the European Workplace (Ashgate, 2012) and was a project researcher in the FP7 RELIGARE project (2010-2013). Her research focuses on religious freedom, anti-discrimination law and reasonable accommodations in the workplace, in particular with regard to Europe and North America. She obtained her law degree from KU Leuven and holds an LLM in International Legal Studies from Harvard Law School (2005). She has worked as a corporate attorney at an international law firm in Brussels and as a public interest attorney at Public Counsel Law Center in Los Angeles. A member of the bars of New York and California, she currently resides in the US.

Zeynep Yanasmayan is a researcher at the European University Viadrina, Germany. She received her PhD from the Faculty of Social Sciences at KU Leuven and previously worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (Göttingen) and as the Scientific Project Manager of the Religious Diversity and Secular Models in Europe - Innovative Approaches to Law and Policy (RELIGARE) project. Her research focuses on topics relating to migration and citizenship studies, Turkish minorities in Europe and the governance of ethnic and religious diversity. Her publications include ‘Further Stay or Return? Insights from the Highly Educated Turkish Migrants in Amsterdam, Barcelona and London’ in Migrant Professionals in the City: Local Encounters, Identities, and Inequalities (Routledge, 2014), ‘Role of Turkish Islamic Organizations in Belgium: An Inquiry into the Strategies of TIFB and IFB’ (Insight Turkey, 2010) and ‘European Citizenship: A Tool for Integration?’ in Illiberal Liberal States: Immigration, Citizenship and Integration in the EU (Ashgate, 2009).

Jørgen S. Nielsen is Honorary Professor of Islamic Studies in the Faculties of Theology and Humanities, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and was previously at the University of Birmingham, UK. He has published extensively on Islam in Europe, including Muslims in Western Europe (Edinburgh University Press, 2004), Shari’a as Discourse (co-editor, Ashgate, 2010), and Religion, Ethnicity and Contested Nationhood in the Former Ottoman Space (editor, Brill, 2012). He is Executive Editor of Yearbook of Muslims in Europe (Brill, since 2009), and the Journal of Muslims in Europe.

Table of Contents

Contents: Foreword, Grace Davie. Part I The RELIGARE Project and Final Report: Introduction, Marie-Claire Foblets, Katayoun Alidadi, Jørgen S. Nielsen and Zeynep Yanasmayan; The RELIGARE Report: religion in the context of the European Union: engaging the interplay between religious diversity and secular models, Marie-Claire Foblets and Katayoun Alidadi. Part II Responses to the RELIGARE Report: Section 1 Religious Freedom in Europe: The Intricacies of Equal Treatment Policies: Freedom of religion or belief: anachronistic in Europe?, Heiner Bielefeldt; Proceeding from combat to concept in religious freedom and equality policies in Europe, Michael Germann; The right to religious freedom: a modern pattern of differentiation and its development, Matthias Koenig; It’s all about relationships, Jane Mair; Religious freedom and accommodation in the United Kingdom, Maleiha Malik; Religion, law and state in contemporary Europe: key trends and dilemmas, Ronan McCrea; Religious diversity and EU action: the overwhelming impact of subsidiarity on legislative instruments, Juana M. Astigarraga Zulaica and Eduardo J. Ruiz-Vieytez; The what, the why and the how, Russell Sandberg; Freedom of thought, conscience and religion: a policy priority for the Council of Europe, Stephanos Stavros; The relationship between religious diversity and secular models: an equality-based perspective, Lucy Vickers. Section 2 On the Reasonable Accommodation Debate: Reflections on the recognition of a right to reasonable accommodation in EU law, Frédérique Ast; The reasonable accommodation of conservative religious beliefs and the protection of LGBT rights at the workplace, Peter Cumper; The effective protection of the freedom of religion: the ECtHR’s variable margin of appreciation regarding religion-state relations and the rule of law, Kristin Henrard; Religious accommodation and inclusive even-handedness, Cécile Laborde; Reasonable accommodation for religion and belief: can it be accommodated in EU law without an express duty?, Andreas Stein. Section 3 Seeing Religious Diversity in Context: Seeking soft measures: complementing law and policy as a strategy for responding to diversity, Lori G. Beaman; Traditional African religions: culture or religion?, Tom Bennett; Notes towards connecting the disconnect: the role of the religion-national identity link, Effie Fokas; The ‘inclusive state neutrality’ normative paradigm, Eugenia Relaño Pastor; RELIGARE: reflections on research and policy recommendations, Adam B. Seligman; Section 4 Religious and Philosophical Diversity and Secularism: Questioning Normativity: Religion in the European Union: comments on the RELIGARE project, Christian Joppke; RELIGARE: the central conflict, Lorenzo Zucca; Critical remarks on the pro-religion apriority of the RELIGARE project, Patrick Loobuyck; RELIGARE, believers and non-believers: but where is the citizen?, Koen Lemmens; An ill-disguised defence of religious privilege, David Pollock. Section 5 Recent Developments: Coherence (and consistency) or organised hypocrisy? Religious freedom in the law of the European Union, Pasquale Annicchino; Improving justice in the ‘burqa ban’ debates: group vulnerability and procedural justice, Eva Brems, Saïla Ouald Chaib and Lourdes Peroni; Recent developments in relation to the RELIGARE project report, Eric Roux. Index.

The views expressed during the execution of the RELIGARE project, in whatever form and or by whatever medium, are the sole responsibility of the authors. The European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.