In 1999, Pakistan submitted a draft-resolution to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva which sought to prohibit the so-called "defamation of religion". Drawing an analogy to the prohibition of incitement and hate-speech in the international convention on civil and political rights as well as to national laws in European countries banning Antisemitism, Pakistan and the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) argued that religions needed to be protected against defamation. Until recently, the resolution has been passed unanimously by the Commission (and later its successor, the Human Rights Council) for many years. Yet in the last decade, critical voices from European states and the US as well as from civil society groups grew louder. They argued that the resolution simply aims to strengthen repressive national blasphemy laws in many countries with Muslim majorities by establishing the prohibition of defamation of religion as a norm in the international realm. But such a norm, they contend, would directly collide with other human rights, notably freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Incidents such as the publication of Mohammed-caricatures in a Danish newspaper and the Pope's speech in Regensburg have fired up the debate. The paper recalls the story of this contested norm from the perspective of diverse religious civil society groups who are actively engaged in the Human Rights Council. It reconstructs how these religious groups employ different conceptions of justice for their respective arguments in the debate on the defamation of religion: While some religious actors argue that religions as collective entities are entitled to recognition and protection, others refer to individual rights and justice claims. Most interestingly, both positions seek to draw on their respective religious traditions while at the same time building a bridge to modern human rights reasoning.
