ICON S Conference 17 – 19 June 2016 Humboldt University Berlin

Fernando Muñoz León: Social Infrastructure
and legal knowledge: On The Difficult Reception
of Antidiscrimination Law in Chile
In Latin America, legal professionals tend to consider
the object of their attention, the law, as a form of
knowledge. This results in an abstract view of the law
that obliterates the role that concrete subjects, with
their personal stories and collective aspirations play
in shaping the law. Most of the time, both, they and
the political authorities issuing norms remain oblivious
to the fact that, for its success, the rule of law
requires the existence of what I would describe as
an adequate social infrastructure, which comprises
ordinary citizens and social movements engaged in
struggles for the legal recognition of their needs and
interests, legal professionals with an expertise in the
relevant areas of law, various kinds of state officials
that participate in the enforcing of norms, and political
authorities endowed with the power to draft the
letter of the law and to assign various resources to its
enforcement. In this essay, I will elaborate on the role
played by these social forces.
53 RITUAL MALE CIRCUMCISION
AND RITUAL ANIMAL SLAUGHTER:
LEGAL, MORAL AND CULTURAL
PERSPECTIVES
There exists considerable controversy with regard
to the Jewish and Islamic practices of ritual male
circumcision and ritual animal slaughter. While
those that engage in them claim that their behaviour
is protected by religious freedom (and, in the case
of circumcision, parental rights), critics argue that
there are legitimate state interests in the protection
of animals and children that justify their regulation
or prohibition. The panel will approach these and
related issues from different angles which include
constitutional law and culture, moral philosophy, and
human rights.
Participants Iddo Porat
Shai Lavi
Kai Möller
Abhayraj Naik
Rachel Priyanka Chenchiah
Name of Chair Kai Möller
Room DOR24 1.502
Concurring panels 90
Iddo Porat: Proportionality and the Constitutionality
of Ritual Animal Slaughter and Male
Circumcision
Ritual animal slaughter and male circumcision are
two religious practices of Jews and Muslims that, since
the 19 th century, have conflicted with the interests, the
morals and the laws of modern Christian societies. In
the past few decades both practices were challenged
in European courts; two recent examples are the Cologne
Regional Court’s decision regarding the legality
of male circumcision (2012) and the Polish Constitutional
Tribunal’s decision regarding the legality of ritual
Jewish slaughter (2014). The counter claims in all such
cases were that a restriction on these practices conflicts
with the right to religious freedom. In Europe, as
well as in many other countries, interpreting the scope
of this right inevitably boils down to the test of proportionality,
which has become the locus of constitutional
review in most European jurisdictions as well as many
other countries. The aim of my presentation will be to
analyze and criticize the use of the test of proportionality
in the context of these two religious practices, and
also to place the use of proportionality in the context
of the European constitutional culture more generally.
Shai Lavi: Unequal Rites: Jews, Muslims and
Religious Freedom in Germany
Religious practices of animal slaughter and male
circumcision, shared by Jews and Muslims, have become
a source of legal and public debate in contemporary
Europe. Some European jurisdictions restrict
(and even ban) these practices, while other jurisdictions