The United Nations and Freedom of Religion

Abstract

A religion, first and foremost, is a collection of beliefs. As such it is an intensely personal matter, every individual being able to decide for himor herself which set of beliefs to adopt. No law can force people to believe certain things, though it may well provide incentives for them to think along certain lines.' The difficulties encountered in trying to prove a person's thoughts, especially when these are divorced from related actions, would make a thought law unworkable,2 hence George Orwell's Thought Police are still, mercifully, a fantasy. For most people, though, a religion is much more than a set of beliefs, given that they often feel the need to translate their beliefs into actions. Such actions can have repercussions for other people, so it becomes necessary for the law to specify which of them can be permitted, and when. Obviously the law cannot tolerate all manner of behaviour simply because it occurs in the name of a religion. Human sacrifices, revenge killings or enforced sterilisations, if sought to be justified purely on religious grounds, would all be universally condemned by any society based on the rule of law. Generally speaking, however, putting aside such extreme examples, there can be little justification for prohibiting religious practices. If practices affect only the volunteer adherents of that religion they should not be legally objectionable. On the contrary, for the sake of a healthy, pluralistic society the law should go out of its way to tolerate diversity and non-conformity. It is when the religious practices of one group come into conflict with the practices, or lack of them, of another that societies can experience difficulties. In today's world the contexts in which these conflicts usually occur are education, family life and church/State relations. In the field of education the conflict is often about whether a religious practice should be tolerated within a State school environment (e.g. the wearing of head-