44 ANDREJEVA v. LATVIA JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINION final stages of concluding a treaty concerning their respective responsibilities in social security matters, including the Soviet period. 9. The present case is different from Stec and Others v. the United Kingdom ((dec.) [GC], nos. 65731/01 and 65900/01, §§ 74 and 76, ECHR 2005-X), the admissibility decision which has served as the guiding caselaw to the majority, and Koua Poirrez v. France (no. 40892/98, ECHR 2003-X), because the interacting rules of international law in this case are different. Nevertheless, for the sake of a complete argument I will address the question of the application of the Stec and Others principles in this case. First of all, I believe that what the Court is saying in both the admissibility decision and the judgment in Stec and Others is perfectly in line with the approach of a human rights court, namely that where the State creates a system of benefits these should not be allocated on the basis of criteria that are discriminatory. However, and as is shown by the outcome in the Stec and Others case (no violation of Article 14), the Court did not abolish either the margin of the State in pursuing its social policies or the criterion of “manifestly without reasonable foundation” for assessing the proportionality of distinctions drawn in the field of social and economic policies (see Stec and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 65731/01 and 65900/01, § 52, ECHR 2006-VI). The situation is also different according to whether we are confronted with alleged discrimination based on sex, as in the Stec and Others case, or on residence or citizenship status. This distinction was correctly drawn in the Carson and Others case, where the Court stated that “the individual does not require the same high level of protection against differences in treatment based on this ground [residence] as is needed in relation to differences based on an inherent characteristic, such as gender or racial or ethnic origin” (see Carson and Others v. the United Kingdom, no. 42184/05, § 80, 4 November 2008, and also point 37 below). In other words, the Court does not take an absolutist approach in its case-law on Article 14. Whereas the majority quote the standard for the application of Article 14 from the Stec and Others admissibility decision (see paragraph 79 of the present judgment), which seems to indicate that any distinctions would automatically be discriminatory, I note that this was not the standard followed in the Stec and Others judgment. 10. I regret that the majority failed to address the key question that the present case raises. In circumstances where the occupation and control of a territory have been contrary to rules of international law and there is an obligation under international law to put an end to the illegality that results from a State having been in physical control of that territory (see Namibia (South-West Africa), Advisory Opinion, ICJ Reports 1971, §§ 117-18), can the Convention require the injured State to bear responsibility for amounts of pensions that had allegedly been earned in the service of a wrongdoing State where (a) the funds stayed with the wrongdoing State and (b) the injured State guarantees a certain minimum pension to all?