The boundaries of religion in international human rights law

Abstract

Intergovernmental institutions constitute “ecological” settings in which international human rights laws and norms are developed and shaped over time. Yet understandings of these settings remain limited. Notable feminist scholars of international law have argued that uncritical reliance on gendered dichotomies—such as objective/subjective, legal/political, and binding/nonbinding—has stunted knowledge of these spaces. I extend this critique by arguing reliance on yet another gendered dichotomy—the secular/religious—has further limited knowledge in this area. Moving past this unreflective reliance provides needed space to identify previously unrecognized ways supposedly local and global factors intersect to shape human rights norm-making within intergovernmental legal institutions. I demonstrate this using data collected as part of a qualitative study that examined how UN officials who work with women’s rights conceptualize the meaning of religion and its relationship to the human rights legal standards they work to interpret, monitor, and advance.