A critical analysis of the continued relevance of secularism to contemporary Islamic states' attitudes to international human rights law

This research aims to provide a critical and relevant exploration of the relationship between the major assumptions surrounding Islamic law and issues related to the protection of basic human rights vis-à-vis the different situations in secular and non-secular countries. The focus is on comparing the precise ways in which secular Islamic states and non-secular Islamic states tend to adopt basic principles pertaining to human rights. The main objective of this study is to discover whether secular Islamic states tend to demonstrate higher degree of compliance with international human rights law in comparison with non-secular Islamic countries. This research objective provides the backbone of the entire work, since a comparison between secular and non-secular Islamic countries may yield important practical implications, and can also determine to what extent the level of a Muslim country's implementation of international human rights law may be attributed to specific factors. Similar aspects are determined by the quality parameter of the work, which is regulated through the flexible organisation of codified law. The context of considering these aspects is comparative by nature, since the legal systems in secular Islamic countries differ from those of non-secular Islamic countries. This study applies both comparative, empirical research and library work. It seeks to provide a theoretical understanding of the specific context of various Islamic states’ attitudes in detail in order to ascertain their level of compliance with international human rights law. The study has provided that modern secular Islamic state seems to be more closely aligned with the principles of human rights than does the non-secular one. The study also provided that secular modern Islamic states do not use religion to regulate their justice systems and that this model emphasises international human rights instead, as secular Islamic state model is based on religious neutrality and does not use Islamic religious principles in dispensing justice, but rather is subject to a well-established justice system that respects human dignity and the rule of law.