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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Politics Of Religious Establishment: Recognition Of Muslim Marriages In South Africa, Peter G. Danchin May 2013

The Politics Of Religious Establishment: Recognition Of Muslim Marriages In South Africa, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

This paper explores the normative dissonances and antinomies generated by the politics around religious establishment by examining post-apartheid law reform efforts in South Africa to recognize Muslim marriages. Since the late 1990s, the South African Law Reform Commission has initiated various projects to recognize the claims of and redress past discrimination against different religious communities, including tribal groups living under customary law and religious minorities with their own family and personal status laws. It is striking how the norms and assumptions underpinning this debate differ from engagements involving the claims of religious communities in Europe and North America where broadly …


Hosanna-Tabor In The Religious Freedom Panopticon, Peter G. Danchin May 2013

Hosanna-Tabor In The Religious Freedom Panopticon, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

No abstract provided.


Religious Freedom In The Jurisprudence Of The Egyptian And European Court Of Human Rights, Saba Mahmood, Peter G. Danchin May 2013

Religious Freedom In The Jurisprudence Of The Egyptian And European Court Of Human Rights, Saba Mahmood, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

No abstract provided.


The Tangled Law And Politics Of Religious Freedom, Peter G. Danchin May 2013

The Tangled Law And Politics Of Religious Freedom, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

No abstract provided.


Islam In The Secular Nomos Of The European Court Of Human Rights, Peter G. Danchin Sep 2010

Islam In The Secular Nomos Of The European Court Of Human Rights, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

Since 2001 the European Court of Human Rights has decided a series of cases involving Islam and the claims of Muslim communities (both majorities and minorities) to freedom of religion and belief. This Article suggests that what is most interesting about these cases is how they are unsettling existing normative legal categories under the ECHR and catalyzing new forms of politics and rethinking of both the historical and theoretical premises of modern liberal political orders. These controversies raise anew two critical questions for ECHR jurisprudence: first, regarding the proper scope of the right to religious freedom; and second, regarding the …


Introduction: The New Collective Security, Peter G. Danchin, Horst Fischer Aug 2010

Introduction: The New Collective Security, Peter G. Danchin, Horst Fischer

Peter G. Danchin

Whether viewed as a socio-legal project gently civilizing states away from an older politics of diplomacy, deterrence, self-help and legitimate warfare, or as an institutional project establishing a collective security system premised on the rule of law, the primary purpose of the United Nations today remains the maintenance of international peace and security and the abolition of the “scourge of war.” In March 2003, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq, a member State of the United Nations, in order to disarm it and change the regime of Saddam Hussein. The war shook the United Nations and leading capitals around …


The Ties That Bind: International Law As Peacemaker, Peter G. Danchin Aug 2010

The Ties That Bind: International Law As Peacemaker, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

Ever since the League of Nations, there has been hope that collective security could be attained by pure international will. Can the present U.N. and worldwide "laws" contain the threats of a post-9/11 society?


Whose Public? Which Law? Mapping The Internal/External Distinction In International Law, Peter G. Danchin May 2009

Whose Public? Which Law? Mapping The Internal/External Distinction In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

This chapter challenges and problematizes the convergence thesis between sovereignty and human rights which is argued to rest on only a partial understanding of the liberal tradition in international law, a position commonly referred to as “liberal anti-pluralism.” While relying on a contingent and thus contestable conception of individual autonomy, liberal anti-pluralist accounts do not in fact seek to challenge the rationale for public law or public reason itself. To the contrary, such accounts advance a vision of “universal” or “global” social order governed by a “neutral” public law which limits the freedom of its subjects pursuant to the single …


Who Is The "Human" In Human Rights? The Claims Of Culture And Religion, Peter G. Danchin Dec 2008

Who Is The "Human" In Human Rights? The Claims Of Culture And Religion, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

Modern critiques of international human rights law force us to confront at least two conceptual puzzles in the area of the claims of culture and religion. The first concerns the two concepts, often run together, of the secular (or secularism) and freedom, and the question of how rights—e.g. the right to freedom of conscience and religion—mediate between these purportedly universal or objective positions and the imagined subjective claims of particular religious or cultural norms. The second concerns the question of what we mean by “human equality” and how this idea relates to deeply-situated issues of collective identity and culture. Such …


Between Rogues And Liberals: Towards Value Pluralism As A Theory Of Freedom Of Religion In International Law, Peter G. Danchin Oct 2008

Between Rogues And Liberals: Towards Value Pluralism As A Theory Of Freedom Of Religion In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

No abstract provided.


Human Rights, Humanitarian Law And The "War On Terrorism" In Afghanistan, Peter G. Danchin Jun 2008

Human Rights, Humanitarian Law And The "War On Terrorism" In Afghanistan, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

No abstract provided.


Suspect Symbols: Value Pluralism As A Theory Of Religious Freedom In International Law, Peter G. Danchin Jun 2008

Suspect Symbols: Value Pluralism As A Theory Of Religious Freedom In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

The grounds upon which states may limit the freedom to manifest religion or belief are divisive questions in constitutional and international law. The focus of recent inquiry has been on laws which proscribe the wearing of religious symbols in certain aspects of the public sphere, and on the claims more generally to religious and cultural freedom of Muslim minorities in European nation-states. Stepping back from these debates, this Article aims at a more rigorous theoretical treatment of the subject. It asks whether there is a coherent notion of religious freedom in international legal theory and, if not, why not? In …


Of Prophets And Proselytes: Freedom Of Religion And The Conflict Of Rights In International Law, Peter G. Danchin Jun 2008

Of Prophets And Proselytes: Freedom Of Religion And The Conflict Of Rights In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

The case of proselytism presents a tangle of competing claims: on the one hand, the rights of proselytizers to free exercise of religion and freedom of speech; on the other hand, the rights of targets of proselytism to change their religion, peacefully to have or maintain a particular religious tradition, and to be free from injury to religious feelings. Clashes between these claims of right are today generating acute tensions in relations between States and peoples, a state of affairs starkly illustrated by the recent Danish cartoons controversy. Irrespective of their resolution in any particular domestic legal system, how should …


U.S. Unilateralism And The International Protection Of Religious Freedom: The Multilateral Alternative, Peter G. Danchin Jun 2008

U.S. Unilateralism And The International Protection Of Religious Freedom: The Multilateral Alternative, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

This article considers the tension in U.S. foreign policy between unilateral and multilateral approaches to the promotion and protection of religious freedom. In particular, it analyzes the recently enacted International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 that seeks to enforce international human rights norms through the imposition of unilateral sanctions on foreign countries that deny religious freedom and persecute religious groups. The Article suggests that this approach stands in an uneasy relationship with existing international and regional human rights regimes and institutions. It argues that as an instrument of foreign policy, the Act is vulnerable to politicization and abuse of the …


Beyond Rationalism And Instrumentalism: The Case For Rethinking U.S. Engagement With International Law And Organization, Peter G. Danchin Jun 2008

Beyond Rationalism And Instrumentalism: The Case For Rethinking U.S. Engagement With International Law And Organization, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

This Essay advances an argument for rethinking the current terms of engagement of U.S. foreign policy with international law and institutions so as to avoid the current two extremes of power politics and imperial moralizing. First, it is necessary to distinguish between force and the status of political domination on the one hand, and consensus and the status of normative meaning on the other. While it may be possible for a superpower to exercise factual authority and control over foreign states and peoples through sheer assertions of force and will, the attainability of such a situation should not be confused …


Religion, Religious Minorities And Human Rights: An Introduction, Peter G. Danchin Jun 2008

Religion, Religious Minorities And Human Rights: An Introduction, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

No abstract provided.