FoRB Podcast: Business and Religious Rights

In Episode 2 of The FoRB Podcast, Dmytro Vovk and Merilin Kiviorg invite Matteo Corsalini (University of Siena) to discuss religious freedom in the workplace and, more broadly, the business approach to FoRB protection. Matteo explains the economic aspect of FoRB, elaborates on the trend in EU Court of Justice (EUCJ) jurisprudence to expand the discretion of public and private employers in FoRB matters, and traces the EUCJ’s approach to the Court’s nature and history. He also guides Dmytro and Merilin through legal reasoning developed by the EUCJ, the European Court of Human Rights, and the U.S. Supreme Court in similar cases.

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The European “Cycle” of Neutrality

Matteo Corsalini is postdoctoral researcher at the University of Siena, Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences.

Concepts of Neutrality in European Law

In liberal Western democracies, one possible reading of the principle of “neutrality” vis-à-vis religions is that states should encourage the flourishing of all co-existing faith- and belief-based systems that inhabit the public sphere. While this paradigm embodies an “ideal type of inclusive secularism,”[1] managing religious diversity under an egalitarian conception of neutrality does not mean that civic authorities must treat all groups seeking a place and a voice within the state with absolute impartiality.

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Dignitatis Humanae 2.0: Religious Freedom for the Good of All

In 2019, the International Theological Commission of the Catholic Church released the Declaration “Religious Freedom for the Good of All: Theological Approaches and Contemporary Challenges.” The Declaration studied the theme of religious freedom in the contemporary (more liberal, secular, pluralistic, and relativistic) world and offers an updated Catholic doctrine of this fundamental right developed in the 1965 Declaration Dignitatis Humanae.

This series offers a set of essays written from various perspectives—Catholic, Orthodox, and secular—and with different outcomes—more positive and supportive (Pin, Gas Aixendri, Künkler,and Stein), and more critical (Antonov and Patrick)—concerning both ideas and approaches articulated in the 2019 Declaration and its political implications.

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