Perpetuating Anti-Muslim Discrimination through the Interpretation of Religious Equality in the European Court of Human Rights
AbstractFaced with widespread prejudice and discrimination, European Muslims are increasingly resorting to the European Court of Human Rights as a last-ditch strategy to transform state policies toward minority faiths. While the Court has a mandate to protect religious freedom and equality, the conservative and sometimes biased way in which it has interpreted these concepts has enabled the persistence of stark asymmetries in the legal and social statuses of different religions. Using an analysis of relevant cases, this article seeks to highlight the judicial processes that currently sustain Muslim subordination and pinpoint specific reforms that could reverse the trend.
Human Rights and Substantive Equality in the Adjudication of Ethnic Practices
With the development of human rights and anti-discrimination law, courts have increasingly been called upon to protect ethnicity related practices from general criminal and civil sanctions. These ‘claims of culture’ have so far been addressed with remarkable inconsistency, leading to popular fears of unlimited normative pluralism and targeted legislative measures. Compounding such controversies, philosophical approaches to multiculturalism have mostly been concerned with policy and offered vague or distorted portrayals of judicial challenges. This article seeks to fill the gap by exploring how the legal standard of substantive equality might structure the courts’ approach to a range of case…
Ruralidad y políticas locales de integración: Estudio comparativo sobre las provincias de Alicante y Valencia
Pese al asentamiento de un número significativo y creciente de migrantes inter a n cio nales en los municipios rurales de los países de rentas altas, existen pocos estudios sobre las políticas de sus autoridades locales en materia de diversidad cultural. Este trabajo pretende abrir el camino examinando algunos motivos teóricos y em píricos para pensar que los ayuntamientos rurales se diferencian de los urbanos en su pro sión a acomodar las prácticas culturales de los inmigrantes, así como en sus pen principales áreas de intervención. El análisis comparativo de 12 municipios de las provincias españolas de Alicante y Valencia sugiere que las políticas de integr…
Tackling racism seriously: Human rights and the underpinnings of ethnic recognition
Ante el persistente reto del racismo, los estados de Europa occidental están buscando maneras de mejorar las actitudes de su población hacia los inmigrantes no blancos procedentes de los países en desarrollo, así como hacia sus descendientes. Sin embargo, dos importantes obstáculos dificultan la puesta en marcha de ambiciosas reformas antirracistas. Por un lado, la enorme brecha entre el número de votantes nativos y de origen extranjero, combinada con la relativa inmunidad de los primeros a la discriminación étnica, hace electoralmente difícil mantener el tema en la agenda política, especialmente con la competencia de partidos de extrema derecha y retórica xenófoba. Por otra parte, los part…
The inclusion of non-western artistic traditions in cultural policy:Contrasting social justice and public diplomacy approaches
On both sides of the Atlantic, the dissemination of non-Western artistic traditions among the general public has been hampered by the prevalence of Eurocentric aesthetic standards in cultural institutions and organizations. In recent years, however, some states have taken steps in order to increase the exposure of immigrant-origin artists in a variety of disciplines, including theatre, music, dance, literature, cinema and visual arts. This article offers a systematic comparison of two such initiatives that have been developed at the national level: the Equity Office of the Canada Council for the Arts and Spain’s network of cultural ‘Houses’ (Red de Casas). While the former was assigned a so…
Indirect Discrimination and School Segregation of Roma Children in the Czech Republic
In DH v. Czech Republic (2007), the Czech government argued that Roma parents consented to the assignment of their children to ‘special’ schools. According to the government, parental consent undermined the claim that the disproportionate assignment of Roma children to inferior schools amounted to discrimination. The court rejected the argument, finding as a matter of law that parents could not choose to subject their children to discriminatory education, and as a matter of fact that the parents’ consent was not informed. Since the judgment, the Czech government continues to disproportionately assign Roma children to inferior schools, but it has revised the procedure they use to obtain pare…