Religion

Ratna Kapur

Chapter 19 in Research Handbook on Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), 2025, pp 217-228 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter examines the relationship between international human rights law and religion through a TWAIL lens. It critiques the dominant narrative that human rights are inherently secular, free from religious justification and best suited to deal with conflicts between religion and rights. A TWAIL approach unpacks the colonial legacies, civilisational and racial narratives, and assumptions about gender that structure the relationship between secular human rights and religion and continue to inform legal texts and cases. The analysis exposes how civilisational and Global North and Global South divides shape secularism and the public/private distinction on which human rights are based. The chapter underscores the need to develop a nuanced understanding of the role of religion in shaping human rights. This includes exploring the revolutionary potential of alternative lifeworlds and epistemologies of the Global South that can counter the Eurocentric and hegemonic use of religion in and through human rights discourse.

Keywords: TWAIL; Human rights law; Secularism; Religion; Colonial legacies; Postcolonial feminism; Subaltern epistemologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781789901511
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