This new publication shares perspectives and learning from a side event at the 25th session of the UN Human Rights Council organized by the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) together with Belgium, Mexico, Montenegro and Norway. At the side-event, experts reflected on a number of key issues, including violence against children; the specific application of the death penalty in Japan; good practices in the assistance of foreign nationals on death row abroad by the Mexican government; and developments in the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Universal Periodic Review Process and the UN General Assembly.
Conscientious Objection to Military Service in Wartime
In this QUNO briefing, Rachel Brett outlines the UN’s longstanding recognition of conscientious objection to military service as a universal right that must be upheld in all circumstances, including in wartime and national emergencies. Drawing on UN standards and the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion under Article 18 of the ICCPR, it explains that this protection is non-derogable and cannot be suspended, even in a national crisis. The paper also highlights the importance of ensuring that soldiers and reservists can access recognition as conscientious objectors at precisely the moments when normal routes out of military service are most likely to be restricted.
