Human Rights of Armed Forces Personnel In General Comment No. 22, the UN Human Rights Committee emphasized that, in cases where a religion has been identified as a state religion, this shall not impair the rights or result in any discrimination against adherents of other religions or non-believers. In particular, the latter should not be excluded from certain public positions or suffer from restrictive practices, nor should adherents of the majority religion be unduly advantaged, economically or otherwise. The ECHR also provides for the right to non-discrimination. Article 14 states that the enjoyment of a person’s Convention rights shall be secured without discrimination on various grounds: “such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status”. Article 14 applies to any person claiming that a state has discriminated against them on grounds of religion (or belief). Article 14 has been supplemented by Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 to the Convention – a free-standing provision that prohibits discrimination on any grounds, including religion, by public authorities, including the armed forces. In its 2010 Recommendation on human rights of armed forces members, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers further emphasized that states must not discriminate between service personnel based on their religion or belief. The European Court of Human Rights has noted in its case law that discrimination not only exists where persons in the same or similar situations are treated differently and without an objective and reasonable justification, but also where states, for no objective and reasonable justification, fail to treat differently persons whose situations are significantly different. For European Union states, Council Directive 2000/78/EC on equal treatment in employment and occupation requires that member states provide a legal remedy for discrimination (whether direct, indirect or constituting harassment) in employment and training, including on the grounds of religion or belief. The prohibition of discrimination does not, however, mean that every distinction on grounds of religion or belief is impermissible. The Directive recognizes that, in very limited circumstances, a difference of treatment may be justified where a characteristic related to religion or belief constitutes a genuine and determining occupational requirement, when the objective is legitimate and the requirement is proportionate. The exception has been interpreted strictly by the European Court of Justice. In the armed forces, this is only likely to apply to the posts of religious representatives, such as chaplains. In such cases, a requirement that the person appointed be of the religion concerned may, if the other conditions are met, be legally defensible. Different Approaches Around half of the OSCE participating States that responded to the ODIHR-DCAF questionnaire collect data on the religious affiliation of armed forces personnel (namely Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland and the United Kingdom). The most commonly stated reason for collecting 152