Concepts and Cases

Abstract

This chapter begins by briefly setting out the book’s purpose, which is to introduce an interpretation of how religion and human rights interrelate in the legal context, and how this relationship might be reconceived. The context for the author’s argument is the increasingly fraught area of judicial reasoning in human rights litigation involving religious arguments, what he terms ‘religious litigation’. It goes on to clarify the meaning of the terms ‘human rights’, ‘judicial reasoning’, ‘religion’, and ‘religious litigation’. This is followed by several cases from the UK, European Convention on Human Rights, and the US that illustrate some of the tensions between religious positions and secular understandings of human rights.