South Korea: Historical reporting to the UN CESCR

On the economic, social and cultural rights of conscientious objectors

by Zaira Zafarana

(30.06.2025) Connection e.V. has just compiled a submission on the violations of economic, social and cultural rights of those who object to military service in the Republic of Korea and submitted to the UN CESCR to eventually address conscientious objection to military service also in relation to the violations of those specific rights, such as for instance the right to work.

You can read the full submission here. This report aims to suggest to CESCR specific issues to be included in the actual review of the country.

To the background

The Republic of Korea is about to be reviewed by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), a treaty committee based on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966 and which did entry into force 3 January 1976.

Civil society has the possibility to contribute and participate in the review of the States parties submitting a parallel report on the situation of human rights in the country under review.

More often the right to conscientious objection to military service is addressed by the UN Human Rights Committee and Connection e.V. regularly contributes to the reviews in that Committee.

Conscientious objectors not only are frequently victim of the violation of their human right to refuse to serve in the military, they also are affected by other consequent violations of human rights such as political, economic, social and so on.

For this reason it is relevant to address this topic also in other treaty bodies where other rights are reviewed.

There are ten human rights treaty bodies composed of independent experts of recognized competence in human rights, who are nominated and elected for fixed renewable terms of four years by State parties.

The submission to Republic of Korea to the UN CESCR

With the submission to Republic of Korea Connection e.V. eventually address conscientious objection to military service also in relation to the violations of those specific rights, such as for instance the right to work.

The report submitted on the situation in the Republic of Korea highlights, in particular,

  • Violations of economic, social and cultural rights before the introduction of alternative service;
  • Violation of article 6 of ICESCR, and possibly others, in relation to the duration of alternative service
  • Possible violations of economic, social and cultural rights of conscientious objectors who are still punished (including by imprisonment) under the current legislation

The aim is to eventually engage the CESCR too on the violations of rights of conscientious objectors whose lives are intensively negatively affected wherever the right to conscientious objection to military service is not recognized or fully implemented.

South Korea has been for a long time the country with the highest public number of imprisoned conscientious objectors. Although there have been some improvements in the legislation providing for alternative service, this is still punitive and run in correctional facilities -not in line with international standards-, reinforcing the alarming issue of social stigma which is still greatly affecting conscientious objectors in the country.

You can read the full report here. This report aims to suggest to CESCR specific issues to be included in the actual review of the country.

Zaira Zafarana: South Korea: Historical reporting to the UN CESCR - On the economic, social and cultural rights of conscientious objectors. 30.06.2025

Keywords:    ⇒ Conscientious Objection   ⇒ Human Rights   ⇒ South Korea