Law and the Christian Tradition in Modern Russia edited by Paul Valliere and Randall A. Poole This volume is part of a fifty-volume series on “Great Christian Jurists in World History,” presenting the interaction of law and Christianity through the biographies of 1000 legal figures of the past two millennia. Commissioned by the Center for…
Photo by Janko Ferlic on Unsplash. In the summer of 2021, the French National Assembly and Senate passed the so-called “anti-separatism” bill, signed into law by Emanuel Macron, ostensibly to protect laïcité, the French secularist doctrine designed to ensure government neutrality toward religion. The new law increases scrutiny by the government of religious associations, bars…
Photo by Ebi Zandi on Unsplash. Recently, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) passed a new ruling on the Muslim headscarf. That headscarves cause debate shouldn’t be a surprise. Four years ago, the CJEU dealt with the very same issue: private employers asking Muslim women to remove their headscarves and Muslim women claiming…
Could Cohabitation Rights Solve the Issue of Unregistered Religious Marriages? A Contextualizing and Summary of Religion and Marriage Law: The Need for Reform Russell Sandberg In my new book, Religion and Marriage Law: The Need for Reform, I argue that the law relating to marriage in England and Wales is outdated and leads to unfairness.…
Photo by David Monje on Unsplash. Religious traditions that are not historically rooted in the Christo-European culture face particular legal and political challenges that are unprecedented in the post-World War II-era. Despite the establishment of supranational bodies responsible for the promotion of human rights standards and the advancement of civil liberties, liberal democracies have failed…
Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash. This article is part of our “Law and Religion Under Pressure: A One-Year Pandemic Retrospective” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. 1. Introduction Coronavirus began to spread across the world a year ago, peaking in most EU countries (as well as the…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “The Right to Shun: Ghent’s Misguided Jehovah’s Witness Decision” Matthew P. Cavedon In March, the criminal court of Ghent, Belgium fined the congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) for “inciting discrimination and hatred or violence against former members.” The case centered on the JW practice of “disfellowshipping.” While the…
Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash. This article is part of our “What’s Wrong with Rights?” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. First of all, let me thank David Little, Jennifer Herdt, John Milbank, Joel Harrison, Hans-Martien ten Napel, and Mark Hill for taking the time and trouble to comment on my…
Photo by Eduardo Rodriguez on Unsplash. This article is part of our “Law and Religion Under Pressure: A One-Year Pandemic Retrospective” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Europe has been an epicenter of the pandemic. It has drawn a lot of attention due to how rapidly and deeply it…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “France’s New Marriage Laws Could Trigger Islamophobic Abuses“ Matthew P. Cavedon France is enacting sweeping legislation targeting Islamist extremism. Its new “separatism law” aims to ensure that Muslims integrate into the secular community. A number of its provisions, including restrictions on publishing information about public employees and limits…