Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion

Freedom of thought, conscience and religion is an `easy case' in the human rights catalogue. The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion has long traditions both in domestic and in international law. There are even grounds to state that the origin of the general idea of human rights lies in the long history of protecting religious minorities. The unproblematic character of the traditional nucleus of the human right in question is apparently the reason that there has been comparatively little research regarding this right and human rights complaints to supervisory international organs have relatively seldom touched on this right. States have not considered it dif®cult to allow their citizens the freedom to think. The dif®culties start when we come to the right to express one's conviction, the right to organize as a community in order to promote a religion or belief and the right to act in accordance with one's conscience even in cases where a domestic legal system seems to require uniform behaviour irrespective of the different convictions held by