Project

The development of the Cultural and Religious Diversity Database

Acronym
CUREDI
Code
41K05619
Duration
01 September 2019 → 31 December 2021
Funding
European funding: various
Research disciplines
  • Social sciences
    • Family law
    • International private law
Keywords
Religious Diversity Cultural Diversity International Family Law
 
Project description

CUREDI aims at establishing a database that brings together in a standardized and searchable format data relating to cultural and religious diversity drawn from case law, legislation and regulations, public documents and policies from across the Member States of the EU. The information focuses on the legal reasoning that is followed – in a court decision, a bill, an administrative decision, etc. – and that leads either to the granting or to the rejection of a claim of recognition of minority rights. To the extent possible, reference will also be made to the empirical evidence that was drawn on (by the legislators/judges, e.g., recourse to expert witnesses) to reach the given outcome. Over the medium term, CUREDI will develop into a comprehensive platform with information derived from rigorous data collection across the Union. It is our hope that it will enable researchers, legal experts, judges, and other interested parties to cross-reference results and rulings on diversity across the EU, as well across different regions within one Member State. The database should help them build nuance into their comparative studies and support their arguments with better, more accessible and more comprehensive data that allow users of the database to keep a finger on the pulse of the latest trends and developments across Member States; this, in turn, can serve as a source of either caution or inspiration. More specifically, CUREDI seeks to: a) examine disparities among legal outcomes in cases that directly or indirectly address cultural and religious diversity across EU Member States; b) understand and measure the gap between, on the one hand, positive law, inherited from the past and which rarely covers the full scope of (more recent forms of) diversity and, on the other hand, various public policy guidelines, as well as ancillary documents and practices (such as administrative practices) that acknowledge the critical nature of diversity and have sought to interpret or fill the legal lacunae; c) link to databases set up with a similar aim and covering topics that are equally relevant to CUREDI. Formulated in terms of functions, CUREDI aims to:

  1. Build a broader understanding of legal reasoning about questions of cultural and religious diversity in the EU by, among other means, taking into account existing databases across Member States (disaggregated data).
  2. Identify common trends of adjudication concerning religious and cultural practices in courts, legal texts and public policies in order to identify significant commonalities and differences.
  3. Identify modes of implementing law through administrative practices and public policies, making a distinction between practices and policies that- for reasons that need to be identified- tend to constrain cultural and religious diversity, and practices and policies that, on the contrary, tend to be lenient and are supportive of the protection of minority rights and claims. What are the main arguments invoked in support of either option?
  4. Show the functioning, through a case-by-case approach, of various historically rooted legal frameworks with a view to facilitating further detailed studies of the way cultural and religious diversity is addressed across EU Member States, also taking into account the differences in methodologies of data collection, publication and storage by countries.
  5. Offer an instrument that is meant to facilitate an in-depth understanding of domestic legal systems and identify the differences across European Member States when it comes to formulating legal responses to claims for recognition of cultural and religious diversity.