The protection of religious freedom has resurfaced as an issue of fundamental importance throughout much of the world during the last decade. The re- emergence of religion, including religious extremism, as a potent social and political force in increasingly multi-religious societies has started to undermine many of the established assumptions on the proper relationship between the state, the church and religious minority groups. The present volume analyses in a comparative and international perspective the question if and to what extent these principles and rules have to be reformulated in order to meet the challenges of religious pluralism at the dawn of the twenty-first century.