M.S.S. v. BELGIUM AND GREECE JUDGMENT 71 by a third-country national, even if such examination is not its responsibility under the criteria laid down in the Regulation. This is the so-called “sovereignty” clause. In such a case, the State concerned becomes the member State responsible for the purposes of the Regulation and takes on the obligations associated with that responsibility. 340. The Court concludes that, under the Dublin Regulation, the Belgian authorities could have refrained from transferring the applicant if they had considered that the receiving country, namely Greece, was not fulfilling its obligations under the Convention. Consequently, the Court considers that the impugned measure taken by the Belgian authorities did not strictly fall within Belgium’s international legal obligations. Accordingly, the presumption of equivalent protection does not apply in this case. 3. Merits of the complaints under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention (a) The decisions in T.I. v. the United Kingdom and K.R.S. v. the United Kingdom 341. In these two cases, the Court had the opportunity to examine the effects of the Dublin Convention, then the Dublin Regulation with regard to the Convention. 342. The T.I. v. the United Kingdom case (cited above) concerned a Sri Lankan national who had unsuccessfully sought asylum in Germany and had then submitted a similar application in the United Kingdom. In application of the Dublin Convention, the United Kingdom had ordered his transfer to Germany. In its decision, the Court considered that indirect removal to an intermediary country, which was also a Contracting Party, left the responsibility of the transferring State intact, and that that State was required, in accordance with the well-established case-law, not to deport a person where substantial grounds had been shown for believing that the person in question, if expelled, would face a real risk of being subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 in the receiving country. Furthermore, the Court reiterated that where States cooperated in an area where there might be implications as to the protection of fundamental rights, it would be incompatible with the purpose and object of the Convention if they were absolved of all responsibility vis-à-vis the Convention in the area concerned (see, among other authorities, Waite and Kennedy v. Germany [GC], no. 26083/94, § 67, ECHR 1999-I). When they apply the Dublin Regulation, therefore, the States must make sure that the intermediary country’s asylum procedure affords sufficient guarantees to avoid an asylum-seeker being removed, directly or indirectly, to his country of origin without any evaluation of the risks he faces from the standpoint of Article 3 of the Convention.