Religion, Human Rights and International Law

Attachment points between religion and law are numerous. Both derive from the same base: morality protected by the rules and ideals which we should be aiming to preserve. Religious freedom is of course a fundamental human right. There is no universal religion, but intimate religious feelings must be protected universally. And the highest human values of the given social group, in turn, can be found in the religious writings.

Human rights are meant to represent a secular morality. But the fact is human rights are actually based on faith, which can be read in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a primer in the protection of human rights. You will start seeing a connection between law and religion in the first Chapter and then get known with origin of our contemporary usage of the phrase “human rights” and in particular how it emerged out of a discourse of dissent and democratic activism in Chapter two. The idea of human rights did not begin with the establishment of the United Nations, its roots can be found in different world cultures and religions. The adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly in 1948 was a landmark achievement in world history as it was the first time that the international community set down formal standards of human rights and freedoms that should be enjoyed by everyone, everywhere. So, in the Chapter 4 we will ask are the welfare state and religious freedom incompatible? Chapter 5 says the international humanitarian law rules governing non-international armed conflict remain much less developed than those for international armed conflicts. This kind of conflicts are mostly religious and here we find another point of attachment. Religion on the other hand can tell apart different ethnic groups, Chapter 6 offers more on the cross race effect. Mob justice is the subject of the next Chapter. Chapter 7 intends to investigate the impact of the mob justice system and find out what the role of the Christian church should be in the midst of this escalating violence on the example of South Africa. Chapter 8 examines three dimensions of American religion-belonging, behavior and belief-by creating a single, unified scale of religiosity and testing it. Chapter examines the...