In a perspective of global protection of the right to freedom of religion, international organizations and States do not restrict themselves to ensuring the right to freely practice one’s religion within their own legal systems but extend their protective action also to their external relations in the increasingly widespread belief that religion significantly affects fundamental interests of States and the international community, such as democracy, development, rule of law, peace and security.

This connection is all the more evident in the current international dynamics, where the increment in migration flows increases the presence of people belonging to different religions in the state territories, and the frequency of terrorist attacks conducted in the name of religion poses thorny problems of security and stability.

The most representative models for analysing the inclusion of the religious factor in the external action of international organizations and States are the European Union and the United States which, while pursuing the common goal of guaranteeing freedom of religion on a universal level, resort to different modes of action.

In the European Union, the use of the conditionality mechanism of commercial and cooperation treaties concluded with third States prevails, by subjecting their execution to the respect for human rights. In the United States, the use of unilateral coercive measures prevails in the context of a surveillance mechanism that raised freedom of religion to a specific measure of US foreign policy.

The survey conducted herein highlights limits in the scope of the measures implemented in the two reference models and the tendency in practice to their discontinuous application, facilitated by the lack of automaticity in the implementation of the measures.