Does Combating the Defamation of Religions protect human rights?

A few days ago the UN General AssemblyThird Committee passed a resolution on Combatting the Defamation of Religions.  The proponents of this resolution argue that there is a need to protect religious minorities from stereotyping and to prevent messages of religious hatred from being disseminated.  I agree that there is such a need.  However, upon further consideration, and certainly after attending a panel discussion on this topic a couple of weeks ago, I have become convinced that focusing on combatting the defamation of religion will not achieve this aim, but rather create multiple problems of its own.

Map showing press freedom rankings for different countries.  Source: Wikimedia commons.

On the normative level, such a move is very dangerous, because it obscures the fundamental concept of human rights.  This resolution associates the protection of religions with the protection of individual human rights.  Making the leap of giving human rights to religions is inconsistent with the principle of human rights and international law in general.  Individuals have human rights because they are human.  Thus, a legal system with human rights at its core would seek to protect the individual from abuse by government, other individuals, and more impersonal forces like the market.  Seeking to extend the same protection to beliefs, ideas, and practices, will in the end do individuals a great disfavour, irrespective of their religion or beliefs.

In practice there are two immediate problems that arise when seeking to apply the concept of rights to religions.  The first is the conflict of interest that may arise when the rights of an individual are in conflict with those of a religion.  The resolution implicitly opens the door for restricting individual rights (particularly the right to freedom of expression) in the name of religion.  Among other things, the resolution explicitly condemns the use of various media to incite violence and xenophobia, or “discrimination against any religion” or religious symbol.

Clearly, I am not in favour of incitement to violence and xenophobia either, and am glad that most countries already have laws that impose reasonable restrictions on free speech in these areas (though they could be better enforced).  But focusing on religions (as opposed to individuals with diverse beliefs) primarily serves to muddle the issue.  For what is a religion?  And what constitutes discrimination against a religion?

This brings me to the second problem, which is that this resolution implicitly makes the government the official watchdog of religion.  Governments would be tasked with defining (a) which sets of beliefs constitute 'valid' religions, (b) which of the hetrogeneous beliefs held by the followers of a religion constitute the 'pure' and inviolable core of that religion, and (c) what constitutes defamation of this sacred core.

It is easy to perceive that the scope for misuse by undemocratic governments is large.  It would justify the suppression of free speech on the grounds that religious principles are being defamed.  It would permit restrictions on religious minorities, should their beliefs be deemed defamatory to other religions by the government.  Suppression of the rights of women in the name of religious tradition would become justifiable under international law.  It is a true pandora's box of human rights violations, as in the extreme sense, the existence of one religion can be construed as the defamation of another.

What, then, ought to be done?  The issue is really one of adequately enforcing existing legislation that protect individuals, especially religious minorities, against defamation and incitements to violence, and to make sure that they can freely practice their religion.  Such measures would reap the benefits intended by the Defamation of Religion resolution, but avoid the pitfalls.

A second course of action is for each individual to excercise the right (and responsibility) that comes from having freedom to speak our opinion.  Indeed, more free speech is the best way to counter defamatory and ignorant speech.  When confronted with bigoted and malicious opinions, we should speak, blog, write to the newspapers, go on radio, and so forth, and set them right.