Romania

In May, Romania hosted the Black Sea Defence and Aerospace Exhibition (BDSA), which saw 270 companies from 25 different countries exhibit to delegations from Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Egypt, Lebanon, Lithuania, Pakistan, Portugal and Vietnam.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States annually does a survey on important "transatlantic trends", which can make an interesting read. One of the questions asked is: "Please tell me to what extent do you agree with the following: Under some conditions, was is necessary to obtain justice." (Q29.2). The answers are quite revealing (see graphic below).

In this presentation I will give an overview of the right to conscientious objection, its
legal practices and frameworks in the 27 European Union member states. Before I do so, I want to step back a bit and have a brief look at the existing international standards about the right to
conscientious objection, as these standards allow us to put the practices in the EU member states into a perspective.

Service required to replace military service

Issues

Romania abolished conscription in 2007.

Service to replace military service

In its previous conclusions, the Committee considered that the situation was not in conformity because the length of the alternative service to military service, 24 months instead of 12, was excessive. It took the view that the additional 12 months, during which the persons concerned were deprived of the right to earn a living through freely undertaken work, went beyond reasonable limits in relation to the length of military service.

Romania is the latest country which finally ended conscription. The transformation into fully professionalised forces in order to comply with NATO standards had been planned for some time. Since the 1990s, the size of the Romanian armed forces and the number of conscripts had been reduced significantly. In 2003 the Constitution was in fact amended in order to allow for the abolition of conscription.

Romania is the next country in South-East Europe to follow the trend to end conscription. In Romania too this is part of a project to modernise the military, and has little to do with disarmament. According to a report by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), Bucharest has agreed to transform its army from a Wassaw Pact mammoth into a lean, mobile force that is compatible with NATO's needs. Romania joined NATO in 2004, and also has troops in Iraq as part of the Coalition of the Willing.

The right to conscientious objection is derived from Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and seen as a manifestation of the freedom of religion and belief. The then CSCE stressed the right to conscientious objection in paragraph 18 of the Document of the Copenhagen meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension in June 1990.The UN Commission on Human Rights stressed the right to conscientious objection in several resolution, most recently Resolution 1998/77, 2000/34, 2002/45. The Council of Europe also stresses the right to conscientious objection, especially in resolution 337 (1967) and recommendations 1518 (2001), R (87) 8, and 816 (1977).