M.S.S. v. BELGIUM AND GREECE JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINIONS 115 Commission or Council or implemented at the time of the applicant’s return to Greece. The proposal has still not been adopted at the present day. 11. The letter of the UNHCR of April 2009 is clearly a document of some importance, coming as it did from an authority whose independence and objectivity are beyond doubt. The letter noted that, although the Court in K.R.S. v. the United Kingdom had decided that the transfer of asylumseekers to Greece did not present a risk of refoulement under Article 3, the Court had not given judgment on compliance by Greece with its obligations under international law on refugees. The letter went on to express the belief of the UNHCR that it was still not the case that the reception of asylumseekers in Greece complied with human rights standards or that asylumseekers had access to fair consideration of their asylum applications or that refugees were effectively able to exercise their rights under the Geneva Convention. The UNHCR concluded the letter by maintaining its assessment of the Greek asylum system and the recommendation which had been formulated in its position paper in April 2008, which had been expressly taken into account by the Court in its K.R.S. v. the United Kingdom decision. Significant as the letter may be, it provides to my mind too fragile a foundation for the conclusion that the Belgian authorities could no longer rely on the K.R.S. v. the United Kingdom decision or that the return of the applicant to Greece would violate his rights under Article 3 of the Convention. 12. The diplomatic assurances given by Greece to the Belgian authorities are found in the judgment not to amount to a sufficient guarantee since the agreement of Greece to take responsibility for receiving the applicant under the Dublin Regulation was sent after the order to leave Belgium had been issued and since the agreement document was worded in stereotyped terms and contained no guarantee concerning the applicant in person. It is true that the assurances of the kind sought by the United Kingdom authorities in the decision in K.R.S. v. the United Kingdom after interim measures had been applied and after specific questions had been put by the Court to the respondent Government, were not sought by the Belgian authorities in the present case. However, the assurances given in K.R.S. v. the United Kingdom were similarly of a general nature and were not addressed to the individual circumstances of the applicant in the case. Moreover, there was no reason to believe in June 2009 that the general practice and procedures in Greece, which had been referred to in the assurances and summarised in the K.R.S. v. the United Kingdom decision, had changed or were no longer applicable. In particular, there was not at that time any evidence that persons were being directly or indirectly returned by Greece to Afghanistan in disregard of the statements relied on by the Court in K.R.S. v. the United Kingdom. Such evidence did not