The Evolution from Religious Minorities to Belief Minorities in Supranational Law

The deconstruction of the traditional meaning of religion emerges in supranational law through the increasing hegemony of the legal formula ‘religion or belief’. The formula ‘religion or belief’ first appeared in the human rights vocabulary of freedom of religion via the innovative expression ‘freedom of religion or belief’ (FoRB) and later in the category of religious minority thanks to the new concept of ‘religious or belief minorities’. Building on this background, this article aims to map the constructive trajectories and legal evolution of the category ‘religious minority’ in international and European law. For this purpose, the main legal documents and sources contributing to the deconstruction of religion via the construction of FoRB are analysed. Furthermore, the transplantation of FoRB in the specific context of religious minority rights by international institutions is traced. In practice, this means examining the construction of the new legal concept of ‘belief minority’ and its implications for the legal status of confessional and non-confessional denominations. If this legal concept and its recent interpretations are mobilised, as argued in the conclusion, European states have demonstrated resistance to the inclusion of this international standard at the national level.