In early 2024, Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (ROC), placed his proverbial cards on the table by declaring Russia's aggression against Ukraine nothing less than a "holy war." Although much evidence had already accumulated against the Patriarch for his steadfast commitment to President Putin's illegal war, until this point very few of Ukraine's partners had taken any meaningful measures against Kirill or his church in response. This unabashed and full-throated declaration, however, must serve as a wakeup call; action against the ROC's wholesale endorsement of Kremlin misadventure-including the church's involvement in the deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children and public incitement to hatred and genocide-can no longer be merely an afterthought. To confront this reality, the article unpacks and explains away the faulty rationales used to preempt the imposition of sanctions on certain ROC institutions and officials. Following this assessment, the article closes by sketching out what a more unified and coherent sanctions regime might look like, and how it can serve as part of a larger concerted effort directed at securing accountability for ROC actions, including its ongoing efforts to consolidate and normalize Russian control over annexed and occupied Ukrainian territory.

Tapping into W. Cole Durham, Jr.'s prolific contributions to our understanding of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief (FoRB), this article examines the complex interplay between the rights of religious nonstate actors (NSAs) and their accountability obligations under international norms. Using the Russian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (ROC) and its support for Russia's aggression in Ukraine as a case study, the article elaborates that state obligations to protect FoRB cannot come at the expense of shielding religious NSAs from responsibility for actions that undermine fundamental rights or fuel armed conflict. To address the need for more precise balancing, the article explores pathways for religious NSA accountability under international human rights law and international criminal law, emphasizing the legitimacy of proportionate and non-discriminatory limitations on FoRB.

In January 2020, President Vladimir Putin surprised Russians and the international community by proposing a sweeping set of constitutional reforms aimed at developing “state structure and domestic policy.” In his state-of-the-nation address, Putin explained that while Russia’s 1993 Constitution remains relevant, amendments were necessary to secure “Russia as a rule-of-law welfare state where citizens’ freedoms and rights, human dignity and wellbeing constitute the highest value.” Despite the apparent emphasis on domestic policy, however, Putin’s push for amendments signaled a distinct preoccupation with Russia’s international standing. Putin asserted that “Russia can be and can remain Russia only as a sovereign state. Our nation’s sovereignty must be unconditional…Russia has returned to international politics as a country whose opinion cannot be ignored.” With this outward-facing orientation established, Putin’s proposed amendments sought to eliminate the potential domestic impact of decisions taken by international bodies regarding Russia’s international obligations and to prohibit government officials from maintaining foreign citizenship or residency. Putin’s fuller vision of the constitutional changes necessary to secure Russia’s sovereignty betrayed his singular fixation on securing Russia’s international status. This article posits that certain other amendments championed by the Kremlin—which failed to garner critical media or scholarly attention at the time of ratification—today functions as a justificatory framework of the highest order for legitimating Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine. Specifically, these latter amendments unabashedly exhort a constitutional vision of Russia as a great power “whose opinion cannot be ignored,” tasked with promulgating a civilizational identity steeped in a heady—if selective—history of imperial entitlement and traditional values stretching back to the realm of Kievan Rus.To demonstrate the centrality of these constitutional amendments on Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the article focuses on two main themes that flow out of the 2020 constitutional amendments: sovereignty and civilization. Each theme is addressed in turn, by discussing the nature and substance of the relevant amendments and highlighting its direct linkage to the Kremlin’s proffered rationales and justifications in defense of its war of aggression against Ukraine. The article concludes by situating the constitutional amendments within the larger trend of “autocratic legalism” and urging the international community to place greater emphasis on a concerted international response that recognizes the constitutionally embedded motivations for Russia’s invasion and the urgency of sustaining an effective deterrence against aggression validated on constitutional grounds, unbounded by international norms, and conceivably poised to threaten the sovereignty of states beyond Ukraine alone.

Much has been written about the Kremlin’s embrace of the Russian Orthodox Church—Moscow Patriarchate (ROC) as a lever of soft power for advancing Russia’s foreign policy. Based on the substance of the constitutional amendments ratified in July 2020, this chapter reasons that the church-state partnership is poised to grow stronger and more entrenched in the coming years. After briefly highlighting the energizing effect several key constitutional amendments are likely to have on existing Kremlin foreign policy objectives, this chapter offers an assessment of the ROC’s central role in disseminating and advocating these newly minted constitutional norms across its international platforms for interreligious, civil society and diplomatic engagement. Given that the constitutional amendments position the Church as an even more vital Kremlin instrument and bless President Vladimir Putin’s ability to retain power, the chapter concludes that policymakers should consider divesting the ROC of its veneer as an autonomous religious actor and adopt measures intended to scrutinize its activities and expose them where necessary as manifestations of Kremlin influence.

This chapter explores whether recent changes to the United States' 1998 International Religious Freedom Act furnish the United States government with effective tools for engaging with and taking potential action against nonstate actors, such as the self-proclaimed Donetsk and the Luhansk People's Republics. The statute now provides the American government with the formal obligation to report on violent nonstate actors found to be violating freedom of religion or belief. In addition, the executive branch may designate those nonstate actors found to be violating freedom of religion in a "particularly severe" manner as "entities of particular concern."

The International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) recently underwent its most significant amendment process since being introduced in 1997. Among the major changes, sponsors of the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act (Wolf Act) proposed adding a new framework to IRFA intended to address the phenomenon of non-state actors (NSAs) violating the right to freedom of religion or belief. The impetus for this new mandate, according to the bill’s sponsors, flowed from the realization that NSAs such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL) were wielding religious intolerance to commit “some of the most egregious religious freedom violations.” Despite its findings that violent NSAs represented an expanding force responsible for exposing a significant percentage of the global population to severe abuses of freedom of religion and belief, the Wolf Act faced an uphill battle in Congress that necessitated significant compromises to secure its passage. As a result, the final bill modified or altogether failed to enshrine certain measures originally proposed to address NSAs. In their place, the Wolf Act instituted an ambiguous statutory definition for those NSAs that would be subject to scrutiny under IRFA. Furthermore, while the new “Entity of Particular Concern” (EPC) designation for NSAs identified as engaging in “particularly severe violations of religious freedom” appeared to mirror IRFA’s existing mandatory sanctions regime for “Countries of Particular Concern,” it fell far short by triggering only a suggestion that the President “take specific actions, when practicable, to address [EPC] violations of religious freedom.” As this new chapter for IRFA enters its third year, this Article will demonstrate that the NSA-related provisions present significant challenges for the U.S. government. To begin the task of fleshing out the nature and impact of these challenges, the Article focuses on one element of IRFA’s NSA definition — namely, the requirement that an NSA be “outside the control of a sovereign government.” After addressing IRFA’s NSA definition and providing an overview of its implementation to date, this Article turns to a critical appraisal of how the state control requirement has been implemented to date. The Article closes with several suggestions aimed at clarifying definitions and institutional responsibilities to repair current practice and reinvigorate IRFA’s promise of promoting and protecting the right of all individuals to freedom of religion or belief.

This Article takes a critical look at the major changes brought about by recent amendments to the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA). The first section briefly traces IRFA’s key features and operation since its enactment, including an overview of the statute’s institutions and reporting and sanctioning mechanisms. This section also highlights the ongoing debate regarding IRFA’s legitimacy and offers a summary of the major criticisms leveled against the statute, as well as the responses raised in its defense. With this background in place, the Article turns to an analysis of the legislative history surrounding the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act (Wolf Act) between 2015 and 2016. This bipartisan legislative initiative envisioned a wide range of amendments intended to address some of IRFA’s past shortcomings. Among the changes initially put forward, IRFA’s narrow focus on states would be expanded to include violent nonstate actors responsible for violating freedom of religion or belief. In addition, the original Wolf Act called for boosting the responsibilities and profile of IRFA’s institutional actors, increasing funding for the promotion of international religious freedom activities, mandatory religious freedom training of State Department officials, and a significant reduction of executive discretion. As a review of this legislative history will demonstrate, however, many of the changes originally proposed would be either diluted or altogether deleted, the victims of bad design or competing political interests. The final content of the Wolf Act as enacted represents an ambivalent renewal of IRFA’s original promise “to use and implement appropriate tools in the United States foreign policy apparatus . . . to promote respect for religious freedom by all governments and peoples.” In conclusion, the Article posits some of this ambivalence may be alleviated or partially remedied based on how IRFA’s primary institutional actors turn to the task of implementation. At the same time, securing a more definitive assertion of the central role of religious freedom in U.S. foreign policy as envisioned in the original Wolf Act will likely require a renewed, more concerted and committed second effort by Congress.

This article critically assesses a recent study on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) prepared by the Organization for Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC). The first two parts review the establishment of the IPHRC and the norms governing regional human rights mechanisms (RHRMs). Following this, the article demonstrates that the methodology and conclusions evidenced in the IPHRC’s SOGI study diametrically oppose substantive international human rights law, and furthermore undermine the intended purpose of RHRMs within the human rights system. The article concludes by recommending that human rights advocates and others clearly and publicly call out these incompatibilities, set baselines for necessary corrections, and work to develop meaningful, binding standards for RHRMs. Among other things, these standards should ensure that similar bodies orient their activities to promoting and protecting international human rights rather than undermining them.

This article is the first of a two part series that draws on women‘s rights and sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) to explore how the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) represents, interprets and seeks to impact the right to equality and protection against discrimination as enshrined under international human rights law. The study is a novel one inasmuch as the OIC is neither a state nor a religious group per se. Rather, the OIC stands out as the only contemporary intergovernmental organization unifying its member states around the commonality of a single religion. In this capacity, the organization maintains no direct obligations or rights under key instruments such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).Nevertheless, as part of its mandate representing 57 predominantly Muslim states, the OIC has increasingly asserted a role for itself on the international stage as "the collective voice of the Muslim world." This new assertiveness is particularly evident in the context of debates surrounding the content of human rights norms in international fora such as the United Nations, where the OIC has sought to develop common policy positions and encourage its members to vote as a bloc on issues of concern. Against this backdrop, the article concludes that supporters of universal human rights norms need to better understand how the OIC‘s mission to "protect and defend the true image of Islam" may impact international debates over the substance of equality and nondiscrimination norms, and develop appropriate responses to these efforts as a means to ensure that universality is not undermined.This article begins with a brief introduction to the OIC, and proceeds to explore its relationship with the principles of equality and nondiscrimination by examining its founding document and other relevant primary sources. With this understanding in place, the paper turns to examine the OIC‘s contemporary handling of these principles as manifested in debates surrounding women‘s rights as well as the relevance and impact of "Islamic family values" on the scope of those rights. This article‘s exploration of "family values" also serves as a pivot point to begin framing rights issues related to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) individuals and related SOGI issues. Throughout this examination, the role of the OIC‘s newly established Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) is considered as a means of appraising whether a shift in the OIC‘s position may be forthcoming.

This article functions both as a brief history lesson in experiential education and as a case study of an experiential course entitled “Human Rights Practicum” offered at the University of Tennessee College of Law in 2015. After briefly discussing historical and current trends in law school reform, including the rise of experiential education within the law school curriculum and the role played by technology in this context, the article turns to explore the impetus for the Human Rights Practicum, its development and implementation, as well as the software technology used to develop its final work product, a web-based “guided interview” for completing a legal form. Specifically, our Practicum sought to train students to use Access to Justice Author (“A2J Author”) a computer programming software that enables the creation of “guided interviews”, which are intended to simplify the filing of complex legal forms and thereby reduce barriers to justice for self-represented litigants. Once trained in A2J Author, students in the Practicum worked to design and implement a guided interview intended to walk pro se litigants through the process of filing discrimination complaints with the Tennessee Human Rights Commission, an independent state agency tasked with safeguarding individuals from discrimination through enforcement and education. Our experience offers a unique contribution to the growing literature on experiential education for at least two reasons: first, technology-driven experiential courses are a relatively new addition to law school curricula and as such they represent a largely unexplored and developing subfield in the realm of experiential education. Second, because the article is co-authored by a professor who taught the practicum and a student who enrolled in it, our perspective provides a more holistic assessment of the challenges and rewards that can flow from similar undertakings, including suggestions for improvements, that in turn will more fully inform faculty and students contemplating either offering, or enrolling in, similar courses in the future.

The Arab Spring has generated unprecedented and seismic political and social upheaval across the Arab world. The reasons for the outbreak of widespread and vociferous public protest are myriad, but generally understood as including long-simmering resentment of government corruption and repression, underwhelming economic development, chronic unemployment and poor respect for human rights, including the treatment of individuals and groups affiliated with political manifestations of Islam. Despite the initial drama surrounding the street rallies, two years on, the pace of change has grown fitful and uncertain.The purpose of this chapter is to consider one narrow aspect of the Arab Spring. Namely, what does this historic moment augur for securing the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief? Further to this question, how — if at all — have the emerging post-Arab Spring governments differentiated themselves from their predecessors on issues including non-discrimination, equality, freedom of expression and the rights of religious minorities — including Muslims dissenting from state-sanctioned Islam, non-Muslims, new religious movements (NRMs), and nonbelievers? And finally, what role, if any, should the larger international community play in advocating or facilitating the adoption of new constitutional and legislative safeguards designed to uphold international human rights norms?In the end, this chapter argues that the revolutions hold the promise of correcting years of discriminatory and unequal treatment. However, such an outcome remains contingent upon overcoming a dangerous historical paradox that often finds formerly persecuted groups morphing into the role of persecutor. The direction emerging regimes tip will be determined by a combination of internal and external factors.

To what extent should or must a corporation contemplate international human rights law? Following a brief discussion of the increasing influence of transnational corporations and global business transactions, as well as the growth of the international human rights system, this Article uses the 2011 United Nations’ Guiding Principles on the effective prevention of, and remedy for, business-related human rights harm as a jumping-off point for addressing the most recent developments related to identifying and regulating business-related human rights practices. After identifying an emerging divide between endorsement and criticism of the Guiding Principles, the Article concludes with a forward-looking view, arguing that although the Guiding Principles may represent a good starting point, corporations genuinely concerned with ensuring the effective minimization or elimination of exposure to potentially embarrassing and costly human rights liabilities should be prepared to apply a more rigorous approach.

As 2012 presidential elections in Russia draw near, evidence points to a collapse in that country’s constitutional obligation of secularism and state-church separation. Although early signs of this phenomenon can be traced back to the Yeltsin era, the Putin and Medvedev presidencies have dealt a fatal blow to secular state policy manifested both at home and abroad, as well as to Russia’s constitutional human rights principles including nondiscrimination and equality of religious beliefs. The first part of this article argues that leadership changes in the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) have triggered an unprecedented deepening of state-ROC ties manifested by a number of key domestic “breakthroughs” for the Church, including bestowing its long-coveted prizes of access to the public education system and the military. But this is only half the story. In addition to encroachment on domestic state policy, the second part of this article illustrates that the ROC has been actively participating in shaping and executing Russia's foreign policy not only in the “near abroad” specifically, but more generally across the European continent and beyond. By welcoming this exclusive ROC function, the government has enabled a paradoxical situation whereby a secular state openly advocates on behalf of Orthodoxy and “traditional” values abroad. This ensuing relationship not only generates deleterious implications for the content of international human rights law, but also serves to reinforce the already deficient human rights situation within Russia, thus further widening the rift between constitutional promise and government practice.

This Article explores the recent decisions by the United Nations (“UN”) Human Rights Council and General Assembly to adopt consensus resolutions aimed at “combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against, persons based on religion or belief.” These resolutions represent an effort to move past a decade’s worth of contentious roll call votes in favor of prohibiting defamation of religion within the international human rights framework. Although labeled “historic” resolutions, this Article argues that the UN’s new compromise approach endorsed in 2011 — and motivated in part by the desire to end years of acrimonious debate over the acceptability of shielding religious beliefs from insult and criticism — is problematic because it risks being exploited to sanction the continued prohibition on defamation of religion and perpetuation of ensuing human rights violations on the ground.