Alcune riflessioni sulla libertà religiosa nei sistemi europeo e interamericano di tutela dei diritti umani

This article aims at elaborating some considerations on freedom of religion in both the European and the Inter-American human rights systems. Precisely, it has a double purpose: on the one hand, it focuses on the peculiar features and critical aspects concerning the protection of the aforementioned freedom in the two regional regimes; on the other hand, it intends to shed light on the similarities and differences between those systems. Actually, the two aspects are rather interrelated. In this regard, whilst the two regional systems are characterised by a certain degree of similarity as far as the normative facet is concerned, i.e. in the way religious freedom is governed in the relevant texts, way less alike is the evolution due to the activity of regional human rights bodies. In particular, whereas, in the last decades, the Strasbourg Court has developed a rich – yet often criticised – case-law in the field of freedom of religion, the Inter-American context is characterised by the almost complete lack of any case-law of the San José Court in this domain. Notwithstanding these dissimilarities, it may be still possible to detect a silver thread: both Courts struggle to contribute, in an evolutive way, in setting the standards in relation to religious freedom.