Religious Freedom and the European Convention on Human Rights: the Case of the Baltic States

Deprivation of [religious liberty] is no slender punishment; it is a heavy price to pay for the exercise of a religious belief.... 1 At the end of the nineteenth century my great-grandparents emigrated from Vilnius, Lithuania, to Great Britain, primarily to escape persecution. It was therefore an emotional occasion for me when I visited Vilnius in the summer of 1999. I stayed in the city of Kaunas and viewed the monument to those who died in the concentration camp on the outskirts of the town during the Second World War. It was also my privilege to visit Estonia in October 1999 to attend a conference on 'Law, Religion and Democratic Society ' at the University of Tartu and to meet government and religious representatives from all three Baltic states. As a lawyer with a keen interest in religious freedom, especially in the Baltic states, I have written this article in an attempt to clarify what the minimum standards of religious freedom are as promul-gated in international law and to ascertain to what extent the Baltic states are meeting those standards. The Baltic states are emerging from many years of totalitarian oppression. The