The pilot were introduced as a research project in 2021, to initiate a cross-religious conversation about human rights in the religious courts and investigate the need for human rights capacity building among court actors. Since then, 12 research papers from six different courts have been produced, and a range of dialogue meetings have been facilitated.
15 different courts
Lebanon has 18 officially recognized religious communities and their personal status matters, such as marriage, child custody and divorce, are subject to 15 different religious legislations. The lack of an all-encompassing civil code makes for a discrepancy in certain, basic rights for the Lebanese. A catholic woman has different rights to inheritance than a Sunni muslim woman.
These challenges have been discussed by civil society actors before and attempts have been made at drafting a civil code or advocating for constitutional change. However, no project have ever before targeted the court actors directly, discussing the human rights challenges from the courts’ perspective and bringing them together to find common ground and common solutions, aiming at creating change from within.
Successful closing event
NCHR and LFPCP have worked together since late 2021 and the pilot were concluded with a large closing event in Beirut, where all 12 researchers presented their papers. The seminar was opened by Rabih Kays and Antoine Messara from LFPCP, Julie Viker Aanensen from NCHR and Svenn Marius Wroldsen from the Norwegian Embassy in Beirut.
Participants from academia, NGOs, the UN, foreign embassies and from civil- and religious courts all joined the discussion, providing their opinions about Lebanon’s multiple personal status laws and their effect on the human rights protection for Lebanese citizens. Among the conclusions were the apparent overlap in challenges among the courts and the growing need for more meeting points and human rights capacity buildings to tackle these challenges.