Human Rights of Armed Forces Personnel Some of the rights set out in the main ILO conventions, including protection against child labour, forced labour (if of a non-military character) and discrimination, apply to everyone, with no special mention of exceptions for members of the armed forces. With respect to other rights, including association and organization rights, and the right to collective bargaining, the relevant ILO conventions declare that the applicability of their provisions to members of the armed forces shall be determined in national laws and regulations. At the same time, some of these conventions, notably ILO Convention No. 87 concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise, stress that the ratification of the convention shall not affect any existing laws, awards, customs or agreements by virtue of which members of the armed forces enjoy any of the convention’s rights. Different Approaches Constitutional provisions Most constitutions assume that members of the armed forces enjoy the same constitutional rights as other citizens and do not make express reference to their rights, except in the context of necessary restrictions. Such restrictions may be designed to ensure political neutrality according to the constitutional role of the armed forces or to allow for military justice in order to maintain discipline. In some countries, constitutional provisions deal with the position of other institutions – such as ombuds institutions, military police and prosecutors and military courts – that oversee the military or are concerned with upholding the rights of service personnel. Military justice is a specialized topic, and there are three approaches to the subject in constitutional provisions: 66 1. States with military court systems where the constitution makes no reference to the process of military justice (for example, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia) or explicitly bestows powers to parliament, congress or other related entity to create a system of military justice (for example, Article 1(8) of the United States Constitution); 2. States where the constitution merely recognizes existing military law, in effect qualifying other constitutional provisions (for example, Article 94 of Luxembourg’s Constitution, Article 86 of Latvia’s Constitution and Section 11(f) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms); and 3. States where the constitution governs the application of military law and the jurisdiction of military courts (for example, Article 38(4) of Ireland’s Constitution). In this category, the variations essentially concern the detail with which the provisions delimit offences and personnel within the permissible reach of these tribunals.