CCPR/C/113/D/2218/2012 Appendices Appendix I [Original: English] Joint opinion of Committee members Yuji Iwasawa, Anja Seibert-Fohr, Yuval Shany and Konstantine Vardzelashvili (concurring) 1. We concur with the Committee’s conclusion that the State party has violated the rights of the author under article 18 (1) of the Covenant, but for somewhat different reasons. We believe that the majority should have adhered to the approach it employed in its Views on similar issues in 2006 and 2010, which analysed the authors’ rights to conscientious objection to military service as an instance of manifestation of belief in practice, which is subject to limitation under article 18 (3).1 Instead, in 2011, the majority of the Committee shifted its approach and treated the right to conscientious objection to military service as part of the absolutely protected right to hold a belief.2 Despite the objections in separate opinions,3 the Committee has employed this absolute approach in recent cases, including in paragraphs 7.7 and 7.8 of the present Views. We do not consider the majority’s explanations for the change of analysis persuasive. We do, however, conclude that the criminal conviction of the author for refusing to perform military service in the present case was not justified under article 18 (3) and therefore that the State party has violated his rights under article 18 (1). 1 2 3 See communications No. 1321-1322/2004, Yeo-Bum Yoon and Myung-Jin Choi v. The Republic of Korea, Views adopted by the Committee on 3 November 2006 and No. 1593-1603/2007, Eu-min Jung et al v. the Republic of Korea, Views adopted by the Committee on 23 March 2010. See communication Nos. 1642-1741/2007, Jeong et al. v. the Republic of Korea, Views adopted on 24 March 2011, appendix (individual opinion of Committee members Yuji Iwasawa, Gerald L. Neuman, and Michael O’Flaherty (concurring)). See communications No. 1853-1854/2008, Atasoy and Sarkut v. Turkey, Views adopted on 29 March 2012, appendix I (individual opinion of Committee member Gerald L. Neuman, jointly with members Yuji Iwasawa, Michael O’Flaherty and Walter Kälin (concurring)); No. 1786/2008, Kim et al. v. the Republic of Korea, Views adopted on 25 October 2012, appendix III (individual opinions of Committee member Walter Kälin (concurring)) and appendix IV (Committee members Gerald L. Neuman and Yuji Iwasawa (concurring)); No. 2179/2012, Kim et al. v. the Republic of Korea, Views adopted on 15 October 2014, appendix I (joint opinion of Committee members Yuji Iwasawa, Gerald L. Neuman, Anja Seibert-Fohr, Yuval Shany and Konstantine Vardzelashvili (concurring)). 9