This project is in continuity with the investigations already carried out by the DiReSoM research group (which has set up an international website committed to the theme Religion, Law and Covid-19 Emergency, and now also Law and Religion in times of war: Diresom), and it intends to study, in an interdisciplinary perspective, how emergencies affect law-making and what their social effects are, with specific reference to the religious factor. Our main aim is to study the issues through comparative lens, focusing on both state and religious laws. Certainly, the solutions adopted by the states depend on different national constitutions and laws, but we think that it is possible to identify some elements of connection which can support – both from a theoretical and applicative point of view – the balance between the different rights at stake, and therefore help in the future to formulate emergency rules increasingly respectful of fundamental rights, especially of religious importance.
The project will be developed following four main steps. The unit of the Principal Investigator (Pisa) – in addition to play a role of coordination and synthesis – will study the rise of emergency measures in state legal systems, in order to analyze the impact on the religious factor. The Ferrara unit will particularly address the study of the health emergency and its implications from the point of view of the faith communities, with specific reference to the actions put in place by the Abrahamic religions in terms of contrast to the pandemic and war. The Messina unit will focus on the impact of the pandemic and the war on the rights of religious minorities, with a view to assessing the consequences in both legal and socio-economic terms. Finally, the Genoa unit will deal with the issue of migration, studying the impact of the pandemic and the war emergency on the interaction between public security, migrants reception and the religious element.