The Catholic Church and International Law

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12795166
AutoresElizabeth Heger Boyle (University of Minnesota, autor de correspondencia), Shannon Golden (0000-0001-7050-5096, The Center for Victims of Torture), W Liao (0000-0003-0026-4586, North Carolina State University)
Año2017
Volumen13
Número1
Páginas395-411
Fecha de publicación2017-07-21
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAnnual Review of Law and Social Science (BOOK_SERIES)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1550-3585 • E-ISSN: 1550-3631
EditorialAnnual Reviews (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-110615-084534
OpenAlexW2234046632
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas48

Since the 1960s, the Catholic Church has been immensely influential in shaping international law. It provides a compelling example of how nonstate actors, relying on principled positions rather than resources, can alter the course of global policy making. The Church's authority rests on three distinct features: (a) independence from the nation-state system; (b) a centralized transnational bureaucracy; and (c) its enduring ideology. In this review, we elaborate on the Church's role in promoting peace, serving the poor, and blocking the institutionalization of access to contraception and abortion. Church ideology finds strong secular counterparts in the cases of promoting peace and support for the poor. It is on shakier ground when it ventures into gender issues, which it has done with zeal in recent years. Its primary allies on gender issues have been other religious organizations and Islamic states, reinforcing the religious rather than human rights basis for Church positions. The Church's role as the moral authority in the secular United Nations system is therefore less clear when it speaks about gender and sexuality

Bureaucracy · Human rights · Ideology · Institutionalisation · Islam · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development