FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND CONSCIENCE IN CHINA AND RUSSIA: IN SEARCH OF NEW COMMONS

Abstract

  The main hypothesis of this article is a possibility of creating a new convention by China and Russia for protecting the fundamental human right to freedom of religion and conscience on a new international level, independent from the West. The need of developing such a convention or even a new international organization is conditioned by the withdrawal of Russia from the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights. We suggest that this cooperation can be beneficial for both parties because it should help secure their sovereignty and improve the implementation of national legislations. The aim of our research is to propose measures of increasing the efficiency of realization of freedom of religion and conscience in China in Russia. In oder to reach it, we employed such methods of legal comparativistics as functional, normative and external comparative analysis and studied the Chinese and Russian specifics of the legal recognition and protection of this right. The findings of our study suggest that the existing limitations of it should be seen as a response to challenges China and Russia have been facing as developing multicultural and policonfessional states. We also discovered that despite its cultural, ideological and political differences, Russia and China share a number of almost identical mechanisms for the realisation of religious liberty. We see it as a solid proof that a necessary common ground for further beneficial cooperation between Russia and China in protection of human rights and freedoms, already exists. Given the results, we proposed a set of measures to increase the realisation of the right to freedom of religion and conscience in both countries, among which are: 1) development of new terminology; 2) separation of this right in two legal institutions; 3) establishment of a fixed lists of reasons for their limitations.