Human Rights of Armed Forces Personnel must be applied to that state only as qualified by the reservation. When states cannot submit reservations upon ratification, as is the case for example with ILO instruments, the conventions themselves may contain provisions to ensure flexibility. For example the applicability of the freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining treaties to the armed forces and police remains at the full discretion of individual states.53 It should also be noted that, in relation to armed forces, the ILO’s definition of “forced labour” does not include compulsory military service that is “of a purely military character”. Derogations States are permitted to suspend – or “derogate” from – certain rights in case of public emergency. Derogations are strictly regulated by human rights treaties. Both the ICCPR and ECHR provide that derogations are only possible under the following conditions: • there is a public emergency that threatens the life of the nation; • a public emergency has been publicly declared; • measures derogating from human rights obligations are strictly limited to what is required by the exigencies of the situation; • such measures are not inconsistent with other obligations under international law (arising, for example, from IHL); • such measures do not discriminate on the grounds of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin; and • such measures are duly communicated to the UN Secretary-General (in case of the ICCPR) and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe (in case of the ECHR). Importantly, there are certain non-derogable rights that cannot be suspended, even in the context of a public emergency (see Box 3.2). 53 46 ILO, “Convention Concerning the Application of the Principles of the Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively” op. cit., note 33; ILO, “Convention Concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise”, op. cit., note 34.