Elizabeth Clark Chapter in Religious Freedom and Communities

Center Associate Director Elizabeth Clark contributed a chapter in Religious Freedom and Communities, edited by Dwight Newman and published by LexisNexis in October 2016. The book is a collection of papers that brings together leading experts of a variety of legal, religious and indigenous communities’ backgrounds, to provide analytical commentary, of a sort useful to practitioners trying to think through tough questions, on the issues related to community and institutional aspects of religious freedom. According to the editor, the collection seeks to explore “cutting-edge questions related to the community and institutational aspects of religious freedom.” It is structured “to be readable as a somewhat cohesive whole, progressing through a series of different approaches and issues.”

Professor Clark contributed the chapter “International and Comparative Law Protections of Collective Aspects of Religious Freedom” included in “Part III: Comparative and International Perspectives on Communities and Religious Freedom”. Her chapter asks the question, “Does religious freedom have a collective aspect?” Professor Clark explains that freedom of religion or belief encompasses not only the rights of the individual to manifest his or her belief, but has a collective dimension that protects the freedom of individuals to worship and manifest their beliefs in community with others and guarantees protections for the institutional manifestations of religious life. Therefore, religious organizations can freely express their beliefs, choose their own doctrine, select their own leaders and teachers, and pass those on to the rising generation in religiously affiliated schools. She explores the protections of these rights under international law, transnational tribunals, and in the law of numerous foreign jurisdictions.