Religious Diversity and Promotion of Minority Rights, Do They Really Go Hand in Hand?

One might expect the promotion of religious minority rights to be linked to the growth of religious diversity. However, the data in the Atlas of Religious and Belief Minority Rights, on which this article is based, does not support this expectation, instead offering a more complex picture. Rather than promoting minority rights and associated legal differences, religious diversity provides religious minorities with a legal status similar to that of majority religious organisations, thereby fostering legal uniformity. After clarifying the notions of religious diversity and promotion of religious minority rights used in this article, the text briefly discusses the process of religious diversification and its impact on the legal systems of European Union countries. It then provides information on the Atlas project and examines how religious diversification affects the promotion of religious minority rights, how these rights are distributed among different religious minorities and the relationship between minority and majority rights. Finally, the article offers a possible explanation for the Atlas findings, focusing on the reluctance of EU states to accept legal pluralism.