The judicialisation of religious freedom conflicts is long recognised. But to date, little has been written on the active role that religious actors and advocacy groups play in this process. This important book does just that. It examines how Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Sikhs, Evangelicals, Christian conservatives and their global support networks have litigated the right to freedom of religion at the European Court of Human Rights over the past 30 years. Drawing on in-depth interviews with NGOs, religious representatives, lawyers and legal experts, it is a powerful study of the social dynamics that shape transnational legal mobilisation and the ways in which legal mobilisation shapes discourses and conflict lines in the field of transnational law.

Explores the role played by international law on the treatment of the right in Europe

Introduction: Transnationalisation, Judicialisation and the Regulation of ReligionFrom the National to the Transnational Regulation of ReligionReligious Freedom Advocacy in a Transnational Legal FieldTrajectories of Legal Mobilisation: Empirical ObservationsContributionsChapter Outline1. Fielding Religious Freedom Advocacy: A Sociological Approach to Transnational Legal MobilisationSocial Movements and Legal MobilisationA Shift of Perspective: Mobilisation in (Transnational) Legal FieldsMethods and Data2. Enacting the Liberal Script: Religious Transatlantic Networks and an Emerging Legal FieldFrom the Shadow of National Sovereignty to the Formation of a Transnational Legal FieldJehovah's Witnesses and Evangelicals: Early Pioneers of Religious Freedom LitigationEnacting the Liberal Frame of Religious Freedom3. Constituting Identities: Sikhs between Symbolic Gains and Legal MarginalisationDiaspora Politics and Legal Mobilisation'Jurimetrics' of the Challenger: Fitting the Legal Niche4. The Orthodoxy of the Powerful: Christians Fighting against ChangeFederating Symbolic CapitalDefending IncumbencyInequalities and Symbolic Boundaries5. Endogenous Change in the Transnational Field: Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims and Christians' Recursive MobilisationJehovah's Witnesses and the Expansion of Religious FreedomsMuslims between Repeat Failure and Growing ActivismConservative Christians' Pushback against Anti-Discrimination NormsConclusion: Faith in Rights or Right Faith?Religious Freedom Mobilisation and the Governance of ReligiousDiversityTowards a Field-Theoretical Understanding of Legal Mobilisation?Religious Freedom quo vadis? Current Developments and Future Research Perspectives