Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Chronological table of international treaties
- Table of cases
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Early antecedents
- 2 From Augsburg to Paris
- 3 The League of Nations: drafting the Covenant
- 4 The Polish Minorities Treaty
- 5 The extension of the minorities system
- 6 The experience under the League
- 7 The UN system
- 8 Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
- 9 The 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief
- 10 Religious freedom under the European Convention on Human Rights: the drafting of Article 9 and of Article 2 of the First Protocol
- 11 The application of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights
- 12 Restrictions upon the scope of Article 9(1)
- 13 The application of Article 2 of the First Protocol
- 14 An interim conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW
10 - Religious freedom under the European Convention on Human Rights: the drafting of Article 9 and of Article 2 of the First Protocol
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Chronological table of international treaties
- Table of cases
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Early antecedents
- 2 From Augsburg to Paris
- 3 The League of Nations: drafting the Covenant
- 4 The Polish Minorities Treaty
- 5 The extension of the minorities system
- 6 The experience under the League
- 7 The UN system
- 8 Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
- 9 The 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief
- 10 Religious freedom under the European Convention on Human Rights: the drafting of Article 9 and of Article 2 of the First Protocol
- 11 The application of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights
- 12 Restrictions upon the scope of Article 9(1)
- 13 The application of Article 2 of the First Protocol
- 14 An interim conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW
Summary
It is accepted that the ECHR is to be interpreted in accordance with Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which provides that treaties are to be interpreted ‘in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose’. According to Article 32, preparatory materials are to be examined in order to ‘confirm the meaning resulting from the application of article 31’ or to determine the meaning where such an interpretation is ‘ambiguous or obscure’ or ‘leads to a result which is manifestly absurd or unreasonable’. Given that the terms of Article 9 of the ECHR and Article 2 of the First Protocol are fairly obscure, the preparatory work should be of some relevance to their interpretation and application. Against this, however, must be placed the manner in which the Court and Commission have adopted a teleological approach to the convention text, which diminishes the impact of the debates surrounding their adoption nearly fifty years ago. Moreover, and as will be seen below, the preparatory work tends only to highlight the problems surrounding the texts, rather than resolve them.
Nevertheless, given that the freedom of religion has received comparatively little attention from the Strasbourg organs, the drafting history still has a relevance to its interpretation and application.
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- Religious Liberty and International Law in Europe , pp. 262 - 280Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997