Atheists, humanists and secularists' activism before the European Court of Human Rights

The aim of this chapter is to study atheist, humanist and secularist groups’ engagement or non-engagement with the ECtHR. Does the Court radiate different messages to groups seeking freedom from religion, or is it perceived by such groups to do so? Is there an assumption amongst such groups, as reflected in some literature, that the Court is an institution promoting secularism? And/or, are the Court’s messages somehow differently (e.g., more carefully) attended to by such groups? The chapter begins with a review of the relevant case law of the ECtHR. This overview includes both older and relatively recent case law, as well as cases arising from a broad range of countries party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) which the Court protects. The chapter then turns our attention to the perceptions, strategies and action (or non action) of atheist, humanist, and secularist groups themselves. The activism under study may aim to reach the ECtHR and/or may be influenced in a claim by the existing ECtHR case law, or it may take place in obliviousness of the Court’s relevant case law. Each of these possibilities opens important questions regarding the relative utility of the Court for atheists, humanists and secularists. Here then the text draws on the aforementioned empirical interview-based research conducted with representatives of atheist, humanist and secularist groups working at the national (in the four aforementioned case-study countries), European and/or international levels, first to provide insight into their raison d’être as activist groups, next to explore the issues around which they mobilise and finally to examine their varied relationships to the ECtHR