ABSTRACT
By analysing the right to freedom of conscience, the idea was to offer a different approach to the right to freedom of religion and belief. A conscientious belief offers an informal belief system that is not necessarily analogous or equivalent in ‘stature’ to a formalised religious belief. Certainly post World War Two, which experienced the beginning efforts to codify international human rights, the right to freedom of conscience achieved the status as a right meriting distinctive protection. The international and regional human rights treaty drafters’ approach to the right to freedom of conscience belies the current interpretation of the term in international and domestic judicial fora given the broad application of a conscientious belief as a necessary consequence of the human right to freedom of conscience. The right to military conscientious objection could derive from the right to freedom of conscience, as demonstrated by the resolutions of various international bodies.
