Book: The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and Human Rights

This edited volume, with contributions from leading international human rights scholars, offers a comprehensive account of the OIC as an important – and controversial – player in the international human rights field.

The book provides an overview of the OIC’s policies and practices in relation to a number of human rights issues, including freedom of expression, women’s rights and refugee protection. The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press.

More about the book

The OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) is an intergovernmental organization, established in 1969 with the purpose of strengthening solidarity among Muslims. Headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the OIC today consists of 57 states from the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

The OIC is powerful bloc in the UN human rights system, most famous perhaps for its promotion of the so-called ‘defamation of religions’ agenda in the 2000s, but more recently also as an advocate of Russia’s ‘traditional values’ resolutions, and a co-sponsor of the 2011 Resolution 16/18, Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against, persons based on religion or belief. At the same time, human rights are, if not in practice then in rhetoric, increasingly part of the OIC’s internal activities, witnessed not only in the establishment of the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission, but also more broadly in the work of the OIC in areas such as humanitarian aid, conflict resolution, refugee policy and minority affairs. These developments testify to the role of the OIC as an increasingly active organisation in the field of international human rights, but also show that its human rights involvement is inconsistent, contradictory, and at times counterproductive to the promotion and further development of certain human rights, such as LGBTI rights, reproductive rights or freedom of expression.

Gathering perspectives from some of the world’s leading scholars on the OIC, this volume explores the nexus between the OIC and the international human rights regime, clarifying and assessing the OIC’s vision, role, and influence in the field of international human rights. Exploring the OIC’s human rights activities at different levels – in the UN, in the organization’s own institutions, and at member state level – this volume analyses the OIC’s approach to human rights, identifying main areas of involvement and underlying conceptions of human rights, analyzing the factors that shape the OIC’s actions and understandings, and discussing the consequences they may have for the broader human rights field. More broadly, the book contributes with theoretical and empirical insightsto discussions on contemporary human rightschallenges, oninternational organizations and onglobal Islam.

The book project is an outcome of two workshops held at the Danish Institute for Human Rights in 2013 and 2015. Selected presentations from the workshops have been published as part of DIHR’s working paper series and can be found here.

The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 2019.

Further information on the OIC

Publications by Marie Juul Petersen:

• Article in the magazine Ræson, "Ytringsfrihed: Vesten og muslimske lande uenige om hadefulde ytringer"
• Article on thewashingtonreview.org, "Will Istanbul Process Relieve the Tension Between the Muslim World and the West?"
• Danish Institute for International Studies report: Islamic or Universal Human Rights, 2011