Nordisk Tidsskrift for Menneskerettigheter Vol. 23 Nr. 4:2005:

English abstracts

Janne Flyghed: Kriminalitetskontroll eller mänskliga rättigheter?

Over the past ten to fifteen years, an increasing number of social issues have become linked, and then subordinated, to security policy. This policy area has witnessed a paradigm shift, with the emergence of a new security mentality. The crumbling of the walls built up during the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet empire, meant the disappearance of the East versus West polarity. And as this world order, based on a balance of terror, passed into history, the nature of the global threat situation was transformed. The military menace was superseded by what was said to be a much more diffuse criminal threat. For what is it that lies concealed behind such concepts as “cross-border crime”, “organised crime”, “terrorism” and the like?

Keywords: Crime-control, human rights, new security-concept, normalising the exceptional, policing

Moussa Abou Ramadan:The Misperception of the European Court of Human Rights on the Immutability of Shari´a:

In this study, I have explored the perception of the European Court of Human Rights on the immutability of Shari´a. I have wanted to explore the idea of immutability and its likely origins. My main thesis is that the opinion of the ECHR is only one of many possible ones. If we accept this idea of immutability of the Shari´a and its status as the source of Islamic law from medieval times, then the clear text of the Qur´an, or an authentic Hadith, or an established Ijma´ cannot be changed. In doing precisely this, the European court has assigned an identity to the Shari´a which excludes all efforts of modernist Muslim scholars to reinterpret the Shari´a.

Keywords: Immutability, Islamic law, Shari´a ,Islamic legal theory, ijtihad, Ijma´(consensus) ,Hadith, Qur´an, bid´a(innovation)

Peder Gravem: KRL-faget etter uttalelsen fra FNs menneskerettighetskomité

This article discusses what the Norwegian government should do to encounter the criticism put forth by the UN Human Rights Committee in the case of Leirvåg et al v Norway. The committee concluded that the framework for the school subject ”Christianity and General Religious and Moral Education”, as it was practiced in this case, represented a violation of article 18, paragraph 4, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The author presents a critical evaluation of the committee's interpretation of the school subject, and on important points argues against the committee's understanding of the Norwegian source materials. A central thesis of the article is to point out that the goal, content, and methods of the school subject are adapted to a pedagogical theory of integrative socialization, in contrast to one of assimilative and segregative socialization. The author considers alternative answers to the criticism of the committee, and concludes by pointing out how the school subject can be specified as one of integrative socialization.

Keywords: Leirvåg et al v Norway, religious freedom, Obligatory religious and moral education