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Derek Brett
Geneva Representative
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Submission to the 102nd Session of the Human Rights Committee: July 2011
for the attention of the Country Report Task Force on
ICELAND
Conscientious objection to military service and related issues
prepared April 2011
As stated in its Fifth Periodic Report under the ICCPR, “Iceland has never had a military force and no practical issues have been raised regarding the right to conscientious objection.”[1]
The defence of Iceland has since 1951 been assured by the NATO alliance, although the visible symbol of this, the USAF base at Keklavik, was closed in 2006.
The country does nevertheless have a “security” budget estimated in 2008 at 3.87 billion Krona ($44.5m). This is almost exclusively for the maintenance of the paramilitary coast guard, which has approximately 130 personnel, three combatant and one research vessels, one transport aircraft and two helicopters.[2] Ironically, this non-military force “fought” the “cod war” against the United Kingdom from November 1975 to June 1976, when Iceland unilaterally anticipated the coming into effect of the 200km economic exclusion zone prescribed in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Whereas earlier “cod wars” about fishing limits had essentially been diplomatic stand-offs, a total of 22 UK frigates were at one time or another deployed in this “Third Cod War”, and although “few shots were fired”, and no fatalities recorded, “several ships were rammed during the conflict and some damage was inflicted, with a few injuries sustained.”[3]
Moreover, Article 75 of Iceland's constitution, although never invoked, states that conscription may be introduced at a time of “national danger”.[4]
The following hypothetical questions might therefore be put to Iceland:
a) how it would have reacted if a member of the coastguard in 1976 had expressed conscientious objections to actually being involved in a “shooting war”, and
b) whether it has contemplated making advance provision (in accordance with Article 18 of the ICCPR) to exempt conscientious objectors should the Constitution's Article 75 ever in fact be invoked – given that such decisions are always more contentious when hostilities are imminent.
[1] CCPR/C/ISL/5, 22 November 2010 para 162
[2] The Military Balance 2010 (International Institute for Security Studies, London), p141.
[3] http://www.britains-smallwars.com/RRGP/CodWar.htm
[4] Horeman, B. & Stolwijk, M., Refusing to Bear Arms , War Resisters International, London, 1998