by religious groups as being an interference with their religious liberty. Other laws compel individuals to undertake activity or behavior in violation of their religious beliefs, such as compelled participation in political activity within a country, or compelled participation in military service.

In terms of what is being done and what may be done to combat this problem, I would agree with much of what Homer Jack has said. Every international instrument concerning human rights has within it provisions on religious liberty, including the U.N. Charter.

The U.N. Charter does not enumerate human rights, but says human rights must be guaranteed to all individuals without distinction on the basis of religion, so we have a nondiscrimination clause even within the U.N. Charter.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the American Declaration of Human Rights and American Convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, all have extensive statements of religious freedom and nondiscrimination clauses.

Many of these instruments also have procedures for implementation, which have provided a forum for individuals and groups to bring cases where they can focus attention on the discrimination that exists. I think it would be a very important step for us to participate in these procedures, by ratification of the various instruments.

Through membership in the OAS we do participate in the InterAmerican Human Rights Commission, which has considered persecution in Guatemala. In addition, the situation of Jehovah's Witnesses in Cuba was taken up in the last report on Cuba. The Human Rights Committee of the International Covenant is another procedure that could be very important. Finally, ratification of the Genocide Convention would be a mechanism for approaching the most serious cases.

Turning from protection to promotion it must be remembered that law cannot do everything. While law can regulate behavior, much of the discrimination and persecution that takes place is motivated by beliefs which law cannot easily affect. There are some international organizations, such as UNESCO, that have been attempting to promote human rights and tolerance through teaching and dissemination of information. Those efforts should be widely supported. I think one encouraging sign is that the Latin American Conference of Churches decided to publish in a combined volume the Bible, selected church declarations, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

While I do not wish to say I consider those to be of equal value, I think it is important that the religious groups themselves are taking an initiative to encourage their members to respect the rights of others, including not only religious liberty but the combined catalog of human rights.

Thank you.

[Ms. Shelton's prepared statement and attachment follow:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DINAH SHELTON, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF SANTA CLARA

I would like to thank the Chairman for inviting me to speak about religious intolerance and discrimination in what is my first appearance before this distinguished Subcommittee. I am Dinah Shelton, Associate Professor at the University of Santa Clara School of Law. I am a member of the Executive Councils of the American Society of International Law and the International Institute of Human Rights, though in this statement I do not speak for either of those organizations. I appear as a human rights lawyer and teacher who has been working on problems of human rights and religious intolerance since 1968, most recently as organizer of the Santa Clara Conference on International Protection of Religious Freedom (December 1979). In my statement, I hope to illustrate the pervasiveness and complexity of the problem you are considering throughout this important series of hearings.

1. What is the Problem?

Recent reports indicate an increase in government repression of religious communities in numerous areas of the world; in addition, many religious communities themselves once more are becoming intolerant of those not sharing their beliefs, especially those seen as schismatic or heretical. During a two month period last year, some 4366 petitions involving religious discrimination were received at the United Nations, ranging in subject and areas from massacre of the Baha'is in Iran, to harrassment of the Coptic Church in Egypt and the Islamic minority in India, to arrests of priests in Brazil, and repression of Christian Protestants in the Soviet Union. No area of the world, no religion is immune from this problem. I have used the term discrimination rather than persecution deliberately, for three reasons.

One, all religious intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief violates international human rights law. The term religious persecution does not appear in any international treaty or declaration concerned with human rights. Where persecution does appear is in common usage to describe a particularly serious situation of discrimination, one where a campaign or program is initiated to exterminate, drive away, or subjugate a people because of their religious, ethical, or moral beliefs. This definition comprises the concepts of both

an orchestrated plan and of a particular genocidal goal, that

of eliminating the group in question as a separate entity. such, persecution forms an extreme example of discrimination in the same way that international jurisprudence has come to view torture as an aggravated form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. While such situations demand urgent attention, at the same time it must be remembered that all religious intolerance and discrimination is prohibited under international norms.

A second reason for addressing the broader issue is that the line between discrimination and persecution is very difficult to draw, depending as it does on an assessment of the ultimate goal of those carrying out the discrimination, whether it is "merely" repressive or fully genocidal.

Thirdly, the ultimate elimination of persecution may only be accomplished, if at all, through combating all forms of discrimination based on religion or belief. Discrimination

can easily shift into persecution during times of societal stress, when discriminatory laws and practices provide the legal justification for government-initiated religious persecution. The pervasiveness of such discrimination is revealed in the work of the UN Human Rights Committee to implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Of the first 52 state reports concerning compliance with the standards of the Covenant, the Committee raised questions on the compatibility of state laws or practices with the guarantee of religious liberty in 41. The countries

involved represent every geographical, economic and political 1

grouping in the world.

2.

The Violators

Most, but not all, religious discrimination and persecution historically was and is today practiced by governments, especially those linked to a particular religion. For many centuries, each state maintained close official relations, or even identity, with its predominant religion. Rulers were sometimes deified, as in the Roman empire, and any denial of the predominant religion was ipso facto treasonable. Other religions were totally excluded from legal existence within the state and their adherents ruthlessly exterminated.

In such cases, a few of which we see today, those who frequently suffer the greatest are not those moving into the country bringing an alien religion, but those within the state who break away from the state religion to reform what are seen as corruptions in the established system, or who claim new revelations. To the state and state religion they are

"heretics" forming "sects" and the greatest threat to established power. Schisms of this type have been perhaps the major triggering event in religious persecution since Akhnaton first tried to introduce monotheism into ancient Egypt.

1.

They are: Syria, Cyprus (2), Hungary (2), Ecuador, Chile, Bulgaria, Romania, Spain, Ukraine SSR, United Kingdom (2), Finland (2), Libya, Sweden, Denmark (2), Czechoslovakia, Germany (DDR), Norway (2), Germany (FR), Yugoslavia, Jordan, USSR, Senegal, Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Italy, Barbados, Kenya, Mali, and Jamaica.