Law Commons^™

In 2011, France banned the wearing of face-veils in public.  This criminalization of face covering was criticized by the U.S. State Department, prominent NGOs, and legal academics of the Anglo-liberal tradition as an improper violation of freedom of religion and expression.  Against this backdrop, the 2014 decision of the European Court of Human Rights upholding the ban provides a timely opportunity to better understand the republican rationale behind it.  Through reconsidering the competing conceptions of the common good produced by Anglo-liberalism and French republicanism I explore how the ban aims to preserve an organizing principle of the Rousseauist social contract.  …