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Secularism in Europe as Refracted through the Prism of the European Court of Human Rights

A public lecture by HALDUN GULALP, Political Science and International Relations, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul; Visiting Professor, Political Science, UCLA

Thursday, May 28, 2009
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
10383 Bunche Hall
Los Angeles, CA United States

Constituting the final stage of a multi-year, multi-national research project funded by the EU, this paper examines the variety of state-church relations and the place of Islam in Europe through the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. This examination reveals both the patterns of litigation, hence the diversity in national political cultures, and the dominant normative assumptions about religion and secularism in Europe more generally, which are implicit in the Court's reasoning. Although the Convention does not specify a standard model of secularism and the Court therefore grants a "margin of appreciation" to individual states, the margin itself seems to vary according to those implicit normative preferences.
 

Sponsor(s): Center for European and Eurasian Studies, Center for Near Eastern Studies