Two international rulings on France’s ban, and they disagree

Two international bodies have ruled on France's 2011 face-covering ban, years apart, and reached opposite conclusions. Both rulings remain in force.

S.A.S. v. France — European Court of Human Rights, 2014

A French Muslim woman challenged the ban under Articles 8 and 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights: private life and freedom of religion.

The Grand Chamber upheld the ban, on 1 July 2014. Its reasoning centred on a concept unusual in human rights law: the French principle of "le vivre ensemble" — living together — was accepted as a legitimate aim, and the Court held that states have wide latitude ("margin of appreciation") in regulating matters of this kind.

The UN Human Rights Committee — 2018

Four years later, the UN Human Rights Committee, the expert body that monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, not a court, reached the opposite conclusion. On two individual complaints against the French government's fines for wearing the full-face veil, it found the ban violated the women's human rights, specifically their right to manifest their religion.

Why both rulings still matter

Neither has been overturned. The ECHR ruling is what actually governs France's domestic law and has been cited by other European states — Belgium, Denmark and now Portugal — drafting bans of their own. The UN ruling has no equivalent enforcement power, but it is the more recent word from an international human rights body, and it is what critics of the bans cite.

A reader asking "is the ban legal under international law" will get a different answer depending on which body they ask. That is the honest state of the question, not a gap in this summary.

Sources. NPR · Open Society Justice Initiative · Global Freedom of Expression, Columbia