A/HRC/9/24 page 3 we do not have any record information before us, most particularly in regard to the number of parties to the Covenant that still rely upon military conscription without providing de jure for a right to conscientious objection. To be sure, in the “concluding observations” framed upon the examination of country reports, the Human Rights Committee has frequently encouraged states to recognize a right of conscientious objection to military practice. But these concluding observations permissibly may contain suggestions of “best practices” and do not, of themselves, change the terms of the Covenant. It is also true that in 1993, the Committee stated in “General Comment 22”, at paragraph 11, that a right to conscientious objection “can be derived” from article 18. But in the interval of more than a decade since, the Committee has never suggested in its jurisprudence under the Optional Protocol that such a “derivation” is in fact required by the Covenant. The language of article 8, paragraph 38 (c) (ii), of the covenant also presents an obstacle to the Committee’s conclusion. 6. The Human Rights Committee also addressed the issue of conscientious objection in its new revised general comment on article 14 of the Covenant. In general comment No. 32, adopted in August 2007, under the rubric “Ne bis in idem”, the Committee, in paragraph 55, stated: Repeated punishment of conscientious objectors for not having obeyed a renewed order to serve in the military may amount to punishment for the same crime if such subsequent refusal is based on the same constant resolve grounded in reasons of conscience. 7. The position of the Committee regarding repeated punishment of conscientious objectors for not having obeyed a renewed order to serve in the military was also the subject of a case before the European Court of Human Rights. On 24 January 2006, the Court ruled in the case of conscientious objector Osman Murat Ülke, and stated, inter alia, the following: The Court noted that, despite the large number of times the applicant had been prosecuted and convicted, the punishment had not exempted him from the obligation to do his military service. He had already been sentenced eight times to terms of imprisonment for refusing to wear uniform. On each occasion, on his release from prison after serving his sentence, he had been escorted back to his regiment, where, upon his refusal to perform military service or put on uniform, he was once again convicted and transferred to prison. Moreover, he had to live the rest of his life with the risk of being sent to prison if he persisted in refusing to perform compulsory military service. …. The numerous criminal prosecutions against the applicant, the cumulative effects of the criminal convictions which resulted from them and the constant alternation between prosecutions and terms of imprisonment, together with the possibility that he would be liable to prosecution for the rest of his life, had been disproportionate to the aim of ensuring that he did his military service. They were more calculated to repressing the applicant’s intellectual personality, inspiring in him feelings of fear, anguish and