This collection reviews the ambiguities of the right to religious freedom against the backdrop of a changing Europe. In their Preface the editors observe the growing importance of religion in public life and the controversies over individual and collective rights that this has generated in domestic and international legal systems. The first contribution, by Pamela Slotte, notes that the ambiguity of concepts such as ‘freedom’ create unavoidable anxieties as well as uncertainty, with the legal contours of secularism acting both as a cage constraining religious expression and as a protective barrier against the more aggressive claims of religion. Next, Joakim Nergelius argues that religious freedom is well entrenched in modern Swedish constitutional law, having been developed over centuries to keep pace with the nation's changing religious landscape. Reinhold Fahlbeck concludes the first part of the book with an essay on the impact of religion on labour and social legislation, noting its negligible direct impact on these branches of Swedish law.

Part 2 of the book opens with a piece by Ronan McCrea on European Union (EU) law's approach to often privileged religious majorities. He concludes that law is rushing in to fill the void left by dissipating shared norms at the national and continental level, the likely result being increasingly fractious cultural warring and litigation. Patrik Bremdal focuses on Islamic headscarf litigation in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and observes how negative connotations assigned to it in early case law have rippled out, permeating almost every subsequent decision on that particular type of religious garb. He attributes this to ‘a Christian and European perspective’ (p 73) which treats Christian symbols with greater leniency. Karin Astrom's essay interrogates the relationship between the freedom of religion and other human rights such as freedom of expression and assembly in Swedish and European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) law. She determines that the boundaries between these rights, and the ways in which disputes are articulated, can interfere with and unbalance one another. Emma Ahlm continues the section with her thoughtful commentary on the communal dimension of religious freedom. She examines the space that the EU and ECHR allow for religious organisations to regulate their internal affairs and suggests that, in the context of religious workplaces, the former takes a more uniform approach whereas the latter grants more flexibility whenever consensus is lacking. Part 2 concludes with Willem Vancutsem's contribution on growing restrictions on religious freedoms in the face of Islamic State atrocities on European soil. He begins boldly by noting that human rights are now seen as an unwelcome dogma by public across the continent, thanks to the limits they place on sovereignty and their increasingly bureaucratic application. Regardless, to deal with illegitimate constraints on religious manifestations he recommends that the ECtHR reduces the broad margin of appreciation currently enjoyed by member states in this regard and that European societies try to create inclusive identities based around human rights, democracy and respect for ‘the Other’. Grave threats from groups such as Islamic State, he concludes rather conventionally, cannot be used to justify attacks on Muslim identity.

Part 3 begins with Lotta Lerwell's discussion of whether Swedish law can prohibit faith schools in light of the ambiguity of Article 2 of the ECHR. She concludes that the position is contested and remains uncertain. Hedvig Bernitz then discusses the challenges of multiculturalism in the Swedish educational system. She notes the difficulty that the law has in preventing the indoctrination of the young while encouraging them to understand the place of religion in democratic society and in relation to what they have in common as citizens. There are, she concludes, ‘no simple answers’ (p 194). The penultimate piece, by Kavot Zillen, considers religious refusals in Swedish healthcare law. She notes the lack of an absolute right under Article 9 of the ECHR in such cases but argues that any accommodation must balance the tension between rights such as religious freedom and access to healthcare and so on. The final essay of the section and book, by Victoria Enkvist, surveys the foregoing themes, noting how concepts such as ‘religion’ and ‘democracy’ are interpreted differently across Europe for historical and demographic reasons. She advises against an ‘us and them mindset’ whenever tensions arise between religious freedom and other important rights, advocating instead for sensitivity towards minority religions whenever these important elements of democratic society must be interpreted.

This book will benefit readers interested in the Swedish religion–State settlement and the broader themes in European approaches to regulating religion; it will have increasingly limited relevance to English jurists as the UK's departure from the European Union is finalised in the coming months and years. Taken in the round it is an eclectic mix of essays from which to pick and choose interesting titbits. The second part has a broader focus and will undoubtedly be of more interest to non-Swedish readers. Ronan McCrea's contribution is particularly perceptive in its treatment of the limits of law and picks up on one of the most ominous ambiguities of all: can the law fill the gaps left by the departure of culture, or is Europe destined to litigate every uncertainty over religion down to the last minutiae? Emma Ahlm's essay is also important and generally applicable, concerned as it is with the understudied collective aspects of the right to religious freedom. In all, this book is another solid resource on a topical and difficult theme.