Claiming Religious Freedom at the European Court of Human Rights: Socio-Legal Field Effects on Legal Mobilization

Abstract

How do legal strategies at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) vary among activists in highly asymmetrical social positions? Social scientists have demonstrated that legal mobilization raises the pressure on states to provide broader minority accommodation. While this may be true, such outcome-oriented studies overlook the fact that judicial mobilization is itself deeply imbued with inequalities and divergent interests among diverse activists. We lack comparative studies to examine how such differences play out in litigation. Drawing on a qualitative in-depth study among Sikh, Muslim, Catholic, Evangelical, and secular advocacy groups involved in religious freedom disputes at the ECtHR, this article argues that claims making often is a balancing act between legal power relations and extra-legal commitments, which leads to variation in activists’ leverage to challenge legal marginalization. First, hostile legal environments discourage more easily activists with weaker transnational connections who are in vulnerable domestic positions. Second, while the most marginalized readily seek to fit identity narratives into dominant legal frames of religion, more powerful actors can target the core of legal principles and power distribution within the legal field as such. Even when unsuccessful in judicial outcomes, they might affect broader political and legal debates.

Strategische Prozessführung im Klagekollektiv

“…1225 Sie alle verfügen über Professions expertise 1226 mit unterschiedlichen Formen "juridischen Kapitals" 1227 und sichern damit die "organisatorischen Ressourcen" 1228 für Menschenrechte an, wohl wissend, dass die Erfolgschancen gering sind? 1245 Ähnliche Fragen stellen sich in den historischen Beispielen stra tegischer Prozessführung aus Deutschland, sodass allein die unterschiedli chen zeitlichen und regionalen Kontexte keine Erklärung für die Mobilisie rung entgegen aller Widrigkeiten sind. 1246 Die Beispiele verbindet vielmehr, dass in allen Fällen kollektive Struktu ren -soziale Bewegungen, Interessenorganisationen oder lose Zusammen schlüsse -involviert waren.…”

Activists in international courts: Backlash, funding, and strategy in international legal mobilization

“…As some states begin to resist international courts' authority, scholars have begun to examine the dynamics of this backlash (Hillebrecht, 2022; Madsen et al, 2018; Sandholtz et al, 2018). Recent studies have also demonstrated that human rights advocates—whether NGOs or individual lawyers—have a significant impact on shaping the jurisprudence of international courts and the impact judgments have in concrete locations (Kahraman, 2018; Sundstrom, 2014; van der Vet, 2012; Kurban, 2020; Conant, 2018; Harms, 2021; Cichowski, 2016; Hodson, 2011; Haddad, 2018). Meanwhile, these advocates themselves have been subject to repression and stigmatization by governments as part of the backlash phenomenon.…”