[1] When I use the term “life stance” I refer in particular to non-religious basic convictions or “world-views” such as atheism and agnosticism.

[2] The locution “freedom of religion or belief” is meant to indicate that religious belief and non-religious convictions are to be protected on an equal footing. The English term “belief” is therefore perhaps misleading, since it has a religious ring. “Belief” in the pertinent human rights texts is a translation of the Russian word убеждение [“obesj-denje”], better translated as “conviction.” As argued by the Soviet representatives in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1947-48 the idea, at the time accepted by the mothers and father of modern international human rights, was to recognize the equal status before the law of religious faith and non-religious fundamental convictions.

[3] See Tore Lindholm, W. Cole Durham, Jr., Bahia G. Tahzib-Lie, eds., Facilitating Freedom of Religion or Belief: A Deskbook, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers: Leiden, 2004:xxxvi-xlii

[4] A much criticized international freedom-of-religion ruling is the Grand Chamber Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Leyla Şahin v. Turkey (Application no. 44774/98) 10 November 2005. For this and other controversial international decisions on FORB cases, see http://www.strasbourgconference.org/.

[5] The eight points below are lifted almost verbatim from the “Introduction” to Facilitating Freedom of Religion or Belief: A Deskbook (see note 3). The sources in international human law are specified in the “Introduction”.

[6] [italics added] http://www.idcpc.org.cn/english/events/061019.htm

[7] http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=301

[8] http://chineseculture.about.com/library/china/whitepaper/blsreligion.htm

[9] Krystyna Daniel and W. Cole Durham, Jr., “Religious Identity as Component in National  Identity: Implications for Emerging in Church-State Relations in the former Socialist Bloc”, in: András Sajó and Shlomo Avineri, eds., The Law of Religious Identity, The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1999:117-152

[10] Lindholm et als, 2004: 19-61, 777-789 and passim. These chapters report and analyze some recent transformations and ongoing discussions within major religious traditions on questions of internally stable and well-grounded support for universally applicable freedom of religious or belief norms. A valuable recent publication in this respect is Joseph Runzo, Nancy M. Martin, and Arvind Sharma, eds., Human rights and responsibilities in the world religions, Oxford: Oneworld, 2003. I have presented and discussed the idea of inter-religious and cross-cultural espousals of human rights in: “The Cross-Cultural Legitimacy of Universal Human Rights: Plural Justification across Normative Divides,” printed in: Francesco Francioni and Martin Scheinin, eds., Cultural Human Rights, Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2008:17-39. Jack Donnelly addresses the idea of “overlapping consensus universality” on human rights  in “The Relative Universality on Human rights”, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 2, May 2007:281-306, at 289-291.

[11] It is frequently claimed that the strength of a persons’ faith or conviction makes for his/her intolerance and animosity to other basic convictions. My experience and reflection makes me move toward the reverse view, with this qualification: To the extent a person’s strongly held faith is also enlightened by thorough knowledge of the religious or life-stance doctrines of others and by first-hand acquaintance with the conviction-based practices of others a person’s strongly held faith is likely to constitute a stable basis for inter-faith toleration and mutual respect. I cannot prove this, but my experience of interfaith cooperation and dialogue, in my own country of Norway, and within the trans-national cooperation networks of the Oslo Coalition and other similar interfaith organizations, has undermined the assumption that “strong belief” disposes people for intolerance and animosity towards people of diverging convictions. The crux of the matter is, I think, that the doctrine of equal freedom and dignity of all human beings whatever their belief or non-belief, is acknowledged as a core truth in a person’s basic faith or conviction. There are good reasons why the “dogma” that all human beings have inalienable freedom and equal dignity is the only metaphysical doctrine included in international human rights instruments. In other respects international human rights norms do not identify with any particular religion or ideology.

[12] Paul M. Taylor, Freedom of Religion. UN and European Human Rights Law and Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University press,  2005.

[13] R. Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred. Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000.

 

 

       （本文为作者在2008年北京“宗教与法治”国际学术研讨会上的发言，普世网首发。）