UNITED NATIONS A General Assembly Distr. GENERAL A/HRC/9/24 20 August 2008 Original: ENGLISH HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Ninth session Agenda item 2 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND REPORTS OF THE OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER AND THE SECRETARY-GENERAL Report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on conscientious objection to military service∗ 1. The Human Rights Council, by its decision 2/102, requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to continue with the fulfilment of her activities, in accordance with all previous decisions adopted by the Commission on Human Rights and to update the relevant reports and studies. A comprehensive analytical report on best practices in relation to conscientious objection to military service (E/CN.4/2006/51) was submitted to the Commission on Human Rights at its sixty-second session, pursuant to Commission resolution 2004/35. The information in that report remains relevant. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) understands decision 2/102 as preserving the previous biannual reporting cycle in respect of this issue until otherwise decided by the Council. The present report to the Council accordingly addresses recent developments in respect of conscientious objection to military service and is updating in character. 2. An important development since the previous comprehensive report in February 2006 on conscientious objection to military service concerns a decision on the merits by the Human Rights Committee, taken in 2006 in communications nos. 1321/2004 and 1322/2004 at the Committee’s eighty-eighth session, held from 16 October to 3 November 2006. In those communications, the two authors, Mr. Myung-Jin Choi and Mr. Yeo-Bum Yoon, nationals of the Republic of Korea, were Jehovah’s Witnesses who refused to be drafted on account of their religious beliefs and conscience. They were both arrested and charged in separate proceedings ∗ The present report was submitted late in order to include the most recent information. GE.08-15173 (E) 010908