A/HRC/37/49 3. States with a negative view of the role of religion in public life 27. A small number of Member States (10) view religion as something negative that should be expurgated from public affairs, and generally respond with severe restrictions on the civic space. The legal framework of these States can involve commitments to secularity, freedom of religion or even to a particular religion. Some of these States ban the role of religion in public life all together, while others allow for nominal freedom to worship. But the hallmark of these States is their propensity for imposing very tight restrictions on the legal status, funding, autonomy and political activities of religious actors and institutions for the purposes of limiting the role of religion, generally, in public and, at times, private life. C. International legal standards 1. Hard and soft law 28. International human rights treaties are reticent on the sort of relationship a State should have with religion or belief. They do, however, impose a duty upon States to be impartial guarantors of the enjoyment of freedom of religion or belief, including the right to freedom from religion, for all individuals and groups within their territory and subject to their jurisdiction. The Human Rights Committee, in paragraph 9 of its general comment No. 22 (1993) on the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, states clearly that the fact that a religion is recognized as a State religion or that its followers comprise the majority of the population should not effectively impair the enjoyment of their rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including articles 18 and 27, or result in discrimination against non-believers or adherents to minority religions. 29. The Human Rights Committee notes that this duty involves both negative obligations, like refraining from perpetuating discriminatory acts, and positive duties, such as the obligation to protect against third-party infringements, including incitement to religious hatred. States are also obliged to ensure that individuals belonging to minorities are able to practise their religions or beliefs or receive public support in the same manner as adherents to a State religion. Other positive duties include satisfying all obligations stipulated by article 27 of the Covenant and by the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, which require States to “take measures to create favourable conditions” that enable persons belonging to religious, ethnic and linguistic minority communities, to “express their characteristics”. Furthermore, the Beirut Declaration and its 18 commitments on “Faith for Rights” 12 explicitly refer to preventing the use of the notion of “State religion” or “doctrinal secularism” to discriminate against individuals or groups, and to “reducing the space for religious or belief pluralism in practice”. 30. The nature of a State’s obligation to promote and protect the right to freedom of religion or belief must be understood within a wider human rights-based framework that stresses the principles of universality, equality and freedom, and which satisfy the duties to respect, protect and promote all human rights for everyone. Article 18 of the Covenant requires States to respect and protect, without discrimination, the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, which includes: (a) the right to have or to adopt a religion or belief of one’s choice; (b) the unconditional freedom from coercion; (c) the right to manifest that religion or belief, either individually or in community with others, in worship, observance, practice and teaching; and (d) the liberty of parents and guardians to provide a religious and moral education for children in accordance to their convictions and in accordance with the evolving capacities of the child. A number of other obligations and specific duties are detailed in articles 1–6 of the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. 12 8 See Beirut Declaration and its 18 commitments on “Faith for Rights”, commitment IV, available at www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/FreedomReligion/Pages/FaithForRights.aspx.