rules of national laws into uniformglobal standards.In my view, such claims areoverstated. I suggest that in spite of an ongoing harmonization of adjudicativemethods across jurisdictions, rights normativity continues to play a decisiverole in determining justifiable sub-constitutional (i.e. statutory or commonlaw) limits on constitutional rights. By normativity, I refer to thesociological, contextual pre-notions that implicitly inform the way rights areinterpreted and dealt with in a given jurisdiction. A rights normativedimension is thus historically and culturally contingent, and not a matter ofpositive law.I propose to give an historicistaccount of how rights normativity affects the application of proportionality tofreedom of religion in Canada and the French Republic. My specific focus willbe on judicial review of statutory restrictions on religious liberty putativelyaimed at advancing gender equality, a value recognized in both jurisdictions asa constitutional imperative.While the right to religiousfreedom in Canada is a negative right to be left unmolested by the state, inFrance it is embedded in a formative, emancipatory project of egalitariancitizenship. By scrutinizing the right in both jurisdictions with reference tothe historical and philosophical context out of which it emerged, I will shedlight on the extent to which the justifiability of limits on freedom ofreligion continues to turn on the underlying constitutional theory from whichthe right derives its legitimizing force, rather than on any aspect of theproportionality standard. Dr. Dawid Bunikowski University of Eastern Finland dawid.bunikowski@uef.fi State, law, politics, and religion in FinlandThe paper explains the State-Church relationship inFinland from legal, social, political, and historical perspective. The paperaim is to explore all the important contemporary legal-political andsocial-political issues with the historical background in the field. The mostimportant thesis is that the current state of things between the State and theChurch is based on an idea of a friendly relationship. By the Church, Imean the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (ELCF) and the Orthodox Churchof Finland (OCF). To understand this way of thinking, I analyse the phenomenonof Finnish Cultural Protestantism (FCP) at many levels: of the law, of thesociety, of the history, politics. The methodology used is also sophisticatedand comprehensive (i.e. analysis of legal acts and doctrine; research on publicopinion; studying of history and politics; interviews; observation). Pedro Erik Carneiro cefas.erik@gmail.com MissingTradition: the Holy See and Christian PersecutionThis paper analyses the statements of theHoly See at the United Nations regarding Christian persecution. Christians facepersecution because of their faith since the beginning. The Catholic Church hasa long tradition regarding conflicts. The just war tradition has influencedmany debates on war since St. Augustine, the founder of the Christian just wartradition. Nowadays, we have been living, in the greatest era of persecutionin Christian history. The Holy See and the State of Vatican City are two differentinternational entities, each with international legal personality. The Pope, asthe supreme head of Roman Catholic Church and also head of state of the VaticanCity, is the connection between them. The Holy See is the voice of Christiansat the United Nations. The Holy See was granted status of non-member statepermanent observer in 1964. The UN Resolution 58/314 establishes that the HolySee can participate in the general debate of the General Assembly, it has theright