Contributi di Sara Tonolo

Summary : 1. Preliminary Remarks - 2. Religious values and nationality - 3. Electio iuris and religious values - 4. Public policy and religious values - 5. The Conventional approach - 6. Conclusive Remarks.

ABSTRACT: The wide evolution of private international law is currently recalling attention to the general aspects of the discipline. Europeanization and globalisation of sources of private international law do not preclude the chance that conflict of laws should also deal with individual identities. To the extent that the European systems have hitherto offered to the application of foreign laws, we are faced with the problem of survival in Europe of an idea of the personality of laws. In fact it’s generally accepted that conflict of laws faces the individual identities of people involved in international relations. Cultural identity may be considered collective and individual at the same time, because each member of the group has an identity of its own. Religious values contribute to defining the cultural identity of individuals: be it in Europe or other countries, cultures, values, civilization, religion, are never absent from the solutions of personal status. Stepping back from the analysis of some cases where religious values are relevant, this Article aims at a theoretical analysis of the subject, involving the contrast between value pluralism, conflict of laws and fundamental rights.

SUMMARY: 1. Preliminary Remarks - 2. The veil before the European Court of Human Rights – 3. Religious Symbols in Article 9 ECHR case law and women’s religious freedom in Europe – 4. Islamic Symbols and European Institutions. Indirect Discrimination? – 5. Conclusive Remarks.

ABSTRACT: Religious freedom within Europe and the place of Islam within Europe are of particular contemporary interest. The focus of recent case law developed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has been on national laws which proscribe the wearing of religious symbols in certain aspects of the public sphere, and on the claims more generally to religious and cultural freedom of Muslim minorities in European states. Stepping back from these cases, this Article aims at a theoretical analysis of the subject, involving the contrast between value pluralism as a basis for religious freedom in international law, and other fundamental rights, i.e. women’s or children’s rights. By recognizing the intrinsic connection between individual rights and communal goods, value pluralism opens new pathways for enforcing human rights.