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47 U.W. Austl. L. Rev. 1 (2020)

handle is hein.journals/uwatlw47 and id is 1 raw text is: INTRODUCTION: LAW AND POLITICS OF FREEDOM OF RELIGION IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE JACLYN L NEO & BRETT G SCHARFFS' I INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND WHY DO WE PROTECT IT? United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Religion and Belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, once wrote that the freedom of religion or belief is neither the first nor the only historical project aimed at eliminating fanaticism, religious intolerance, hostility against religious minorities or religiously motivated violence, but it is a very specific project particularly suitable for the modern world and its inherent pluralism.' Freedom of religion and belief is a well- established right under international law. It is found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief,2 as well as other specialist human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women3 and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. 4 Besides international law, there has also been a proliferation of religious freedom clauses in constitutional documents around the world., This is in line with a global diffusion of rights formulations in constitutional texts. For instance, Law and Versteeg observes a rights creep in their study of national constitutions, whereby an increasing number of constitutions contain an increasing number of * Jaclyn L Neo is Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the National University of Singapore. Brett G Scharffs is Rex E Lee Chair and Professor of Law and Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University Law School. Heiner Bielefeldt, 'Freedom of Religion or Belief-A Human Right under Pressure' (2012) i(i) Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 15, 15. Ibid. See Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, opened for signature 18 December 1979, 1249 UNTS 13 (entered into force 3 September 1981) art 2, 15(1) and 16. 4 See International Convention on the Protection of the Rights ofAll Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, opened for signature 18 December 1990, 2220 UNTS 3 (entered into force i July 2003) art 12. 1 Natan Lerner, Religion, Belief and International Human Rights (Orbis Books, 2000) 129; John R Witte Jr, 'A Dickensian Era of Religious Rights: An Update on Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective' (2001) 42 William and Mary Law Review 707, 709.

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