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… In recent years, alternative theories of human rights—and of FoRB in particular—have emerged outside Europe to increasingly question the individual-centered approach of Western law, including the ECtHR’s judicial practice. Notably, in 2022, under the banner of “Catholic post-liberalism,” Harvard Law School professor Adrian Vermeule articulated a theory of constitutional interpretation that Western courts should understand human rights not merely as expressions of individual preferences but rather as tools directed to the promotion of the whole good of societies. While Vermeule’s formulation left unresolved how a “common good” reading of FoRB might concretely unfold, Sydney Law School professor Joel Harrison appeared to address this lacuna in his book Post-Liberal Religious Freedom: Forming Communities of Charity.
Deaton, Deenen, and Integrity and Role of Catholic Social Teaching
by Ingeborg G. Gabriel
The debate in the United States and beyond on liberalism has taken a rather disconcerting turn, in which concepts from Catholic Social Teaching (CST) are invoked. The following post is an attempt to sketch this phenomenon drawing on ideas of economist Angus Deaton and philosopher Patrick Deneen. Can CST, which is also high on the agenda of the present pontiff Leo XIV, cut a trail through the jungle of these ideas?
In The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality (2015), Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel Prize winner in Economics, shows that liberal economics in the tradition of Adam Smith have, during the past 250 years, been the theoretical basis for the way out of poverty for the largest part of a world population growing at great speed. Deaton sketches a path for the future to increase the “wealth of nations” through concerted action and solidarity to reduce inequalities.
Several recent unpublished U.S. federal court opinions have responded to claims under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause by incarcerated Native American practitioners. The RLUIPA, enacted by Congress in 2000, provides that governments may not impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise of persons confined to institutions unless the government can demonstrate that the burden is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is narrowly tailored to further that interest. Incarcerated practitioners of Native American religion have been able to get access to sweat lodges and other aspects of Native religious practice and to have certain religious practices accommodated under the law.
One of the most significant challenges facing contemporary religious systems is the regulation of the rights of religious minorities. Legal systems approach this issue in varied ways, reflecting differences in political philosophy, historical development, and religious traditions. Some states adopt closed-list strategies, explicitly enumerating the communities entitled to recognition. Others employ more universalist frameworks, whereby secular law applies to all, but recognized groups are granted additional rights, most often in areas such as personal status. These divergent approaches shape not only the rights afforded to minorities but also the mechanisms through which exclusion is enforced.
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