Conflict Displacement and Legal Protection : Understanding Asylum, Human Rights and Refugee Law

While the 21st century bears witness to several conflicts leading to mass displacement, the conflict in Syria has crystallised the need for a solid legal framework and legal certainty. This book analyses the relevant legal instruments for the provision of a protection status for persons fleeing to Europe from conflict and violence. It focuses on the conceptualisation of conflict and violence in the countries of origin and the different approaches taken in the interpretation of them in the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Recast Qualification Directive of the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights. It traces the hierarchical order of protection granted, starting with refugee protection status, to subsidiary protection status and finally with the negative protection from non-refoulement. Recent case law and asylum status determination practices of European countries illustrate the obstacles in the interpretation as well as the divergence in the application of the legal instruments. The book fills an important gap in examining the current practices of key actors, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and European states, tracing changes in national and international policies and revealing discrepancies towards contemporary approaches to conflicts. It refines the interaction and cross-fertilisation of the different relevant fields of European asylum law, human rights law and the laws of armed conflict in order to further the development of a harmonised protection regime for conflict-induced displacement. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of abbreviations and acronyms 1 Introduction 1.1 A first glance at the book 1.2 Context considerations 1.3 The European struggle with asylum realities 1.4 The structure and the applicable law 2 Refugee protection in the context of conflict and violence 2.1 An introduction to the 1951 Convention as the primary refugee protection instrument 2.2 The 1951 Convention and the regional extended instruments 2.3 UNHCR – the mechanism of implementation and its position on persons fleeing conflict 2.4 Interpreting the 1951 Convention criteria of a conflictdisplaced refugee 2.5 Intermediate conclusion on the 1951 Convention and persons fleeing conflict and violence 3 European Union asylum law and persons fleeingconflict and violence 3.1 The historical development of a CEAS 3.2 Union law instruments and the protection of persons fleeing conflict and violence 3.3 Adjudicating asylum law on the supranational level – the role of the CJEU and subsidiary protection 3.4 An interpretative overhaul – the (Recast) QD and international humanitarian law 3.5 Intermediate conclusion on the (Recast) QD and subsidiary protection for persons fleeing conflict and violence 4 European human rights law protection for persons fleeing conflict and violence 4.1 Complementary protection in Europe – turningto the ECHR 4.2 The scope of the Convention’s Article 3 of non-refoulement 4.3 Extraterritorial application of European human rights law 4.4 Intermediate conclusion on the ECHR’s nonrefoulement and countries in conflict 5 Conclusion 5.1 Conflict displacement and the challenge of status determination 5.2 Refugee law, Europe’s complementary Protection scheme and the role of international humanitarian law 5.3 Concluding remarks Index This book brings together the three relevant fields of international and regional law: Analysing the role of the 1951 Refugee Convention, the European Union’s Recast Qualification Directive and the European Convention on Human Rights.