Anna Kobernyak

Religios Freedom and Gender Equality in International Human Rights Law: on a Hierarchy of Human Rights Anna Kobernyak

Nowadays, a growing demand of women for equal rights induces reactions abridging them of opportunity for full emancipation. While the tenet of gender discrimination is protected by international law, multiple human rights violations of discriminatory nature continue to take place. To this day, arguments based on religion continue to be prevalent justification for the infringement of women's rights. With an example of Muslim states presenting the subjugation of women as a manifestation of their internationally protected religious belief, this book, therefore, is set to demonstrate how international law embodies a tension between the right to freedom of religion and the right of women to non-discrimination. It illustrates the ways in which the unrestrained deviation of Muslim states from the universal guarantee of gender equality and the subsequent wide-spread discrimination against women in the name of religion is maintained by international legislation that, in fact, is hierarchical in nature. Hereby, the book should be especially interesting to human rights law students, legal profession, and activists working on the advancement of women human rights.