CCPR/C/112/D/2053/2011 Appendix III [Original: Spanish] Individual opinion of Committee member Fabián Omar Salvioli (concurring) 1. I concur with the Committee’s decision that there had been no violation of the Covenant in the case of B.L. v. Australia (communication No. 2053/2011), but I do not share the line of reasoning by which it arrived at this conclusion. 2. I understand that the Australian authorities duly considered the author’s application for refugee status and that the author did not petition for a judicial review of that decision. 3. The author has not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he might be persecuted by the State of Senegal or that he might be the target of attacks in Senegal or threats against his life made with the acquiescence or tolerance of the State of Senegal. In my view, those are the reasons on which the Committee should have based its decision. 4. The Committee should not have stated that “the author has not put forward any other reason why he could not relocate within Senegal” (para. 7.4). It is also regrettable that the Committee concluded that “it would not be unreasonable to expect him to settle in a location, especially one more distant from Touba, where such protection would be available to him” (para. 7.4). 5. The Committee has never based its decisions on the “internal flight alternative” or “internal relocation alternative” doctrines. It is my understanding that it has not done so in this case either and that the above-mentioned assertions figured no more than marginally in the line of reasoning that led to the Committee’s decision. 6. The adoption of these doctrines in the course of the Committee’s deliberations would represent a setback for the consideration of future cases and would undermine the standards of protection already established by the Committee in its settled jurisprudence. 7. I hope that in the future, the Committee will abstain from superfluous analyses that could becloud its practices in cases such as this. If a person would genuinely be at risk of becoming the victim of violations of article 6 or article 7 of the Covenant if that person were to be expelled or extradited from a State party to another State (whether or not it is a party to the Covenant), the Committee should find a violation regardless of whether or not there are any safer areas within the country to which the victim would be sent. 14