Freedom of religion - universal right or matter of national security?

The right to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) is a topic of increasing concern and debate in academia, in public, and in international policy. This is evident from the growing number of national, intergovernmental, and civil society initiatives focused on promoting awareness of FoRB.1 Attention to the right to FoRB has been present in international human rights instruments at least since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948, if not earlier. This attention was further cemented with the creation of the UN Special Rapporteur on religious intolerance in 1986 (subsequently made the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief in 2000). However, the recent surge of efforts that focus explicitly, primarily, and sometimes exclusively on FoRB were all arguably precipitated in some sense by the introduction of the International Religious Freedom Act in the United States in 1998