irrespective of the fact that Mr. Kindler is not a citizen of Canada. The obligations towards him are those that must avail to him in his quality as a human being on Canadian soil. Secondly, the very notion of "protection" requires prior preventive measures, particularly in the case of a deprivation of life. Once an individual is deprived of his life, it cannot be restored to him. These preventive measures necessarily include the prevention of any real risk of the deprivation of life. By extraditing Mr. Kindler without seeking assurances, as Canada was entitled to do under the Extradition Treaty, that the death sentence would not be applied to him, Canada put his life at real risk. Thirdly, it cannot be said that unequal standards are being expected of Canada as opposed to other States. In its very terms, some provisions of article 6 apply to States which do not have the death penalty and other provisions apply to those States which have not yet abolished that penalty. Besides, unequal standards may, unfortunately, be the result of reservations which States may make to particular articles of the Covenant though, I hasten to add, it is questionable whether all reservations may be held to be valid. the State through which it acts, that is to say, through its judicial arm or through its executive arm. Article 26 regulates a State party's legislative, executive as well as judicial behaviour. That, in my view, is the prime principle, in questions of equality and non-discrimination under the Covenant, guaranteeing the application of the rule of law in a State party. 6. I have grave doubts as to whether, in deciding to extradite Mr. Kindler, Canada would have reached the same decision if it had properly directed itself on its obligations deriving from article 5 (2), in conjunction with articles 2, 6 and 26, of the Covenant. It would appear that Canada rather considered, in effect, the question whether there were, or there were not, special circumstances justifying the application of the death sentence to Mr. Kindler, well realizing that, by virtue of Canadian law, the death sentence could not have been imposed in Canada itself on Mr. Kindler on conviction there for the kind of offence he had committed. Canada had exercised its sovereign decision to abolish the death penalty for civil, as distinct from military, offences, thereby ensuring greater respect for, and protection of the individual's inherent right to life. Article 5 (2) would, even if article 6 of the Covenant were given a minimal interpretation, have prevented Canada from invoking that minimal interpretation to restrict or give lesser protection to that right by an executive act of extradition though, in principle, permissible under Canadian extradition law. 3.4 A further question arises under article 6 (1), which requires that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life. The question is whether the granting of the same and equal level of respect and protection is consistent with the attitude that, so long as the individual is within Canada's territory, that right will be fully respected and protected to that level, under Canadian law viewed in its total effect even though expressed in different enactments (penal law and extradition law), whereas Canada might be free to abrogate that level of respect and protection by the deliberate and coercive act of sending that individual away from its territory to another State where the fatal act runs the real risk of being perpetrated. Could this inconsistency be held to amount to a real risk of an "arbitrary" deprivation of life within the terms of article 6 (1) in that unequal treatment is in effect meted out to different individuals within the same jurisdiction? A positive answer would seem to suggest itself as Canada, through its judicial arm, could not sentence an individual to death under Canadian law whereas Canada, through its executive arm, found it possible under its extradition law to extradite him to face the real risk of such a sentence. R. Lallah D. INDIVIDUAL OPINION SUBMITTED BY MR. FAUSTO POCAR (DISSENTING) While I agree with the decision of the Committee in so far as it refers to the consideration of the claim under article 7 of the Covenant, I am not able to agree with the findings of the Committee that in the present case there has been no violation of article 6 of the Covenant. The question whether the fact that Canada had abolished capital punishment except for certain military offences required its authorities to refuse extradition or request assurances from the United States that the death penalty would not be imposed against Mr. Kindler, must in my view receive an affirmative answer. 3.5 For the above reasons, there was, in my view, a case before the Committee to find a violation by Canada of article 6 of the Covenant. Regarding the death penalty, it has to be recalled that, although article 6 of the Covenant does not prescribe categorically the abolition of capital punishment, it imposes a set of obligations on States parties that have not yet abolished it. As the Committee has pointed out in its General Comment 6 (16), "the article also refers generally to abolition in terms which strongly suggest that abolition is desirable." Furthermore, the wording of paragraphs 2 and 6 clearly indicates that article 6 tolerates – within certain limits and in view of a future abolition – the existence of capital punishment in States parties that have not yet abolished it, but may by no means be interpreted as implying for any State party an authorization to delay its abolition or, a fortiori, to enlarge its scope or to introduce or reintroduce it. Consequently, a State party that has abolished the death penalty is in my view under the legal obligation, according to article 6 of the Covenant, not to reintroduce it. This obligation must refer both to a direct 4. Consideration of the possible application of articles 26 and 5 of the Covenant would, in my view, lend further support to the case for a violation of article 6. 5. In the light of the considerations discussed in paragraph 3.4 above, it would seem that article 26 of the Covenant which guarantees equality before the law has been breached. Equality under this article, in my view, includes substantive equality under a State party's law viewed in its totality and its effect on the individual. Effectively, different and unequal treatment may be said to have been meted out to Mr. Kindler when compared with the treatment which an individual having committed the same offence would have received in Canada. It does not matter, for this purpose, whether Canada metes out this unequal treatment by reason of the particular arm of 126