IHRL and the Defamation of Religions: Can We Change the Subject?

Between 1999 and 2010, the United Nations adopted seventeen controversial resolutions to combat the defamation of religions (DoR). The polarization between member states was such that the notion of DoR was ultimately abandoned. In tracing its history, the article follows the hypothesis that the notion of DoR is a strategy with the objective of changing the secular framework of international human rights law, including its subject, to favor a religious basis. This is made visible through an interdisciplinary approach combining legal and religious studies and the method, common to both, of the discourse analysis of resolutions, diplomatic minutes, and reports.