During the past fifteen years, the European Court of Human Rights has been engaging seriously with freedom of religion and belief rights under Article 9 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In many ways the scope and ambition of the Court’s jurisprudence has been breathtaking, especially when viewed from the United States, but many questions have begun to emerge about whether the Court has established an intellectual and conceptual architecture that is up to the task of dealing with the increasingly complex cases involving religious freedom that the Court is currently facing and will soon face. This panel, comprised of experts from Europe, the United States and Australia, will address a number of important issues that have been or are in the process of being addressed by the Court, including: wearing religious symbols and clothing in public places (including the headscarf controversies and cases from France and Turkey); the rights of religious groups to register and receive recognition (including issues that arise with tiered registration systems that provide special benefits to favored religious groups); rights of religious association, such as the right of churches to hire and fire personnel on the basis of religious qualifications; free speech rights, including the line between proper and improper proselytism, hate speech, and defamation of religion. The panel will also assess the contributions the Court has made to international conceptions and theories of human rights, as well as religious perspectives (in particular, Jewish, Christian and Islamic views) on the meaning of the law and religion jurisprudence of the Court for these religious traditions.