American Religious Liberty in International Perspective

This Article compares First Amendment religious liberty with prevailing international human rights norms on religious freedom set out in the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 1981 UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, the 1989 Vienna Concluding Documents, and other documents. The United States Supreme Court's cases on freedom of conscience, free exercise of religion, and religious equality and non-discrimination compare favorably to international standards, though the Court's repeated failure to protect the distinct religious freedom claims of Native American groups falls short. The Supreme Court cases defending the principle of separation of church and state mesh well with international concerns for the rights and autonomy of religious groups, but go beyond international norms in largely removing religious freedom from public education.