Introduction to the Symposium on Rabiat Akande, “An Imperial History of Race-Religion in International Law”

8 Akande discusses the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights focusing on Muslim headscarves and veils to illustrate how the “Christian European foundations of international law continue to give life to a jurisprudence that excludes Europe's religious others.” 9 She examines modern cases before the UN Human Rights Committee and CERD that use an analysis that sees race-religion interaction as merely dual, rather than acknowledging co-constitution. 12 The symposium convenes a diverse array of scholars covering the different areas addressed by Akande's article, i.e., race/religion, colonial history of international law, and human rights mechanisms. On other occasions, if race-religion was rigid, groups would be barred. [...]it was not only “whiteness” per se that became dominant, but a specific form of “whiteness” (e.g., Anglo-Saxon, Teutonic, Aryan) that was being constantly reimagined and redefined. 22 In the twentieth century, racio-religious hierarchies contributed to anti-Semitism and anti-Catholic discrimination. [...]the hierarchies within the social constructions of whiteness led to Protestant Northern and Western Europeans being raced as superior to Eastern and Southern Europeans, who are predominantly Jewish and Catholic.