Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2013:500
Date: 2013-07-18
Language of the case: French
Subject matter: Asylum policy;Area of freedom, security and justice
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Belgium

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber), 30 January 2014 Border controls, asylum and immigration — Asylum policy — Refugee status or subsidiary protection status — Directive 2004/83 — Conditions of eligibility for subsidiary protection — Articles 2(e) and 15(c) — Serious and individual threat — ‘Internal armed conflict’ — Interpretation independent of international humanitarian law — Criteria for assessment (Council Directive 2004/83, Arts 2(e) and 15(c)) On a proper construction of Article 15(c) of Directive 2004/83 on minimum standards for the qualification and status of third country nationals or stateless persons as refugees or as persons who otherwise need international protection and the content of the protection granted, it must be acknowledged that an internal armed conflict exists, for the purposes of applying that provision, if a State’s armed forces confront one or more armed groups or if two or more armed groups confront each other. It is not necessary for that conflict to be categorised as ‘armed conflict not of an international character’ under international humanitarian law; nor is it necessary to carry out, in addition to an appraisal of the level of violence present in the territory concerned, a separate assessment of the intensity of the armed confrontations, the level of organisation of the armed forces involved or the duration of the conflict. International humanitarian law, on the one hand, and the subsidiary protection regime introduced by Directive 2004/83, on the other, pursue different aims and establish quite distinct protection mechanisms. Accordingly, it is not possible — without disregarding those two distinct areas, the one governed by international humanitarian law and the other by Article 2(e) of Directive 2004/83, read in conjunction with Article 15(c) of that directive — to make eligibility for subsidiary protection conditional upon a finding that the conditions for applying international humanitarian law have been met. The finding that there is an armed conflict for the purposes of Directive 2004/83 must not be made conditional upon the armed forces involved having a certain level of organisation or upon the conflict lasting for a specific length of time: it is sufficient if the confrontations in which those armed forces are involved give rise to such a high level of indiscriminate violence that substantial grounds are shown for believing that a civilian, if returned to the relevant country or region, would – solely on account of his presence in the territory of that country or region – face a real risk of being subject to a serious and individual threat to his life or person, thereby creating a genuine need for international protection on the part of the applicant. (see paras 24, 26, 30, 34, 35, operative part)