CCPR/C/113/D/2022/2011 Appendix II Separate opinion of Committee members Olivier de Frouville, Mauro Politi, Victor Manuel Rodríguez-Rescia and Fabián Omar Salvioli (partly dissenting) 1. In paragraph 9.7 of its Views, the Committee decided not to examine separately the authors’ allegations under article 16, read in conjunction with article 2 (3), of the Covenant. The Committee appears to be seeking to apply the principle of economy of means: “In the light of the above findings, the Committee will not examine separately” . In other words, it considers that the substance of the authors’ claims was already taken into account by the Committee in its review of the State party’s compliance with articles 6, 7 and 9 of the Covenant, of which it was found to be in violation in paragraph 9.6. However, this is not what emerges from a reading of the authors’ conclusions, who do not cite article 16 as a subsidiary argument but rather as an independent claim and who, moreover, by referring to the Committee’s own jurisprudence in other cases of enforced disappearance, find a violation of article 16. a Therefore, there were no grounds for applying the principle of economy of means. 2. However, it is the merits of the Committee’s decision that seem to us open to criticism: on one hand, the Committee admits that the events in question fit the description of “enforced disappearance” (see para. 9.3) and, on the other, it considers that there was no need to rule on the alleged violation of article 16, read in conjunction with article 2 (3). However, in our view, the two claims cannot both be correct, as we believe that any enforced disappearance necessarily entails a violation of article 16. 3. Article 16 reaffirms the right of everyone to “recognition everywhere as a person before the law”. The travaux préparatoires of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights make it possible to establish that the concept of “legal personality” covers not merely the capacity of individuals to act, which goes with the recognition of the right to conclude contracts and contractual responsibility, but rather the fact, for any person, of being recognized as a subject of rights and holder of individual rights and obligations. b In this regard, article 16 is undoubtedly one of the most direct expressions of the principle of respect for the dignity of the human person in international human rights law: the very fact of being human entails the right to recognition of legal personality, independently of even the legal capacity accorded to the person (for example, infants have the right to legal personality even if they have a limited capacity that means that they do not enjoy all rights). However, as the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has emphasized, enforced disappearance is a prime example of the violation of the right to a b 16 The authors cite communications No. 1495/2006, Zohra Madoui v. Algeria, 1 December 2008, para. 7.7, and No. 1327/2004, Grioua v. Algeria, 16 August 2007, para. 7.9. Albert Verdoodt, “Naissance et signification de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme” (Louvain-Paris, Société d’études morales, sociales et juridiques, Editions Nauwelaerts, 1964), pp. 108-111. Manfred Nowak, United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: CCPR Commentary (Kehl, N.P. Engel, 1993), pp. 282-283.