The European Court of Human Rights, Minority Religions, and the Social Construction of Religious Freedom1

Abstract

In a publication, the social construction of human rights was discussed, focusing particularly on the relatively new right of religious freedom. This chapter examines the construction of the concept of religious freedom, pointing out that it first developed within a particular historical and geographic context in Western Europe as a means to deter bloody religious conflicts that had broken out there. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 is the first time religious freedom was guaranteed in formal legal document. The European Court of Human Rights, working in loose concert with constitutional courts in the region of Eastern and Central Europe, has shown support for religious freedom for groups and individuals in that part of world during the post-Soviet period. The lack of autonomy of the legal system and growing nationalism in Russia have contributed to a severe problem for minority religions attempting to exercise what seemed to be fairly liberal laws at the outset of the decade of the 1990s.