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The law, including international law, is subject to continuous change. It can be adapted to changing circumstances through formal amendments of or additions to existing norms and practices. It can also be changed through the conduct of international institutions that is not within their legally defined competencies, provided - it will be argued - that the unauthorised conduct (a) is not expressly forbidden by existing rules of international law, and (b) is accepted or condoned by a cross-section of the international community of states. The creation by the Security Council of the United Nations of ad hoc international criminal tribunals, for example, cannot even with a stretch of the imagination be justified on the basis of the powers of the Council stipulated in the UN Charter. However, their creation was applauded by the nations of the world as a feasible and practical way of responding to the atrocities of the early 1990's in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The creation of international criminal tribunals by the Security Council has thus come to be accepted as a new rule of international law. The same reasoning is applied to the newly acquired competence of NATO forces to intervene militarily on humanitarian grounds as exemplified by the NATO bombing campaign of 1999 in Serbia, while not one of the NATO countries was being attacked or under threat of an attack, and the competence of States to attack terrorist groups in a foreign country if the government of that country is either unwilling or unable to prevent the ongoing acts of terror violence.

The United States insisted that the International Criminal Court would not have jurisdiction to prosecute American nationals. It was to be a court for others, not for them. The Rome Conference insisted on upholding the principle of equal justice for all and consequently rejected American exceptionalism. The Clinton administration nevertheless signed the ICC Statute and remained involved in the post Rome proceedings of the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court. However, when President Bush took office, his administration embarked on a world wide campaign to discredit the ICC. It cancelled the American signing of the ICC Statute, it enacted hostile legislation aimed at frustrating the functioning of the ICC, and it concluded agreements with approximately 50 States that place those States under an obligation not to surrender American nationals for trial in the ICC. The difference of opinion between the United States and the European Union cannot be resolved by diplomatic means since the United States administration is obligated by an American statute to discredit the ICC and to prevent it from operating according to its Statute. The European Union and its Member States will therefore have to embark on a policy of confrontation.

Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface -- Introduction -- Religious Dimensions of Human Rights -- Religious Rights: An Historical Perspective -- Human Rights and Biblical Legal Thought -- Religious Rights and Christian Texts -- Religious Activism for Human Rights: A Christian Case Study -- Human Rights in the Church -- Thinking About Women, Christianity, and Rights -- The Religious Rights of Children -- Religious Human Rights in Judaic Texts -- Forming Religious Communities and Respecting Dissenter's Rights: A Jewish Tradition for a Modem Society -- Jewish NGOs and Religious Human Rights: A Case Study -- Women in Judaism From the Perspective of Human Rights -- The Duty to Educate in Jewish Law: A Right with a Purpose -- Islamic Foundations of Religious Human Rights -- Rights of Women Within Islamic Communities -- The Treatment of Religious Dissidents Under Classical and Contemporary Islamic Law -- An Apologia for Religious Human Rights -- Religion and Human Rights: A Theological Apologetic -- Identity, Difference, and Belonging: Religious and Cultural Rights -- Bibliography of Books and Articles Cited -- Biographical Sketches of Contributors -- Index.