Brussels, 30/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - In EU law, the interpretation to be given to the concept of “internal armed conflict” in EU Directive 2004/83/EC (on the criteria to be met by non-EU nationals to be granted international protection or the status of refugee) must be independent of the definition used in international humanitarian law. An internal armed conflict must be found to exist where a state's armed forces confront one or more armed groups or where two or more armed groups confront each other, regardless of the intensity of the confrontations, the level of organisation of the armed forces involved or the duration of the conflict.
This is the substance of a ruling in case C-285/12 issued by the European Court of Justice on 30 January in response to questions from the Belgian Senate, where a Guinean national had lodged an appeal. The gentleman applied for international protection in Belgium, arguing that he had been the victim of acts of violence in Guinea following his participation in protest movements against the ruling regime, but he was refused subsidiary protection on the ground that there was no “internal armed conflict” in Guinea, as defined in international humanitarian law. The Belgian court wanted clarification about the interpretation to be given to the concept of “internal armed conflict” as referred to in Directive 2004/83.
In the ruling, the Court of Justice says that in EU law, the interpretation to be given to the concept of “internal armed conflict” must be independent of the definition used in international humanitarian law and the concept of “internal armed conflict” as used in Directive 2004/83 is unique to that directive and is not directly reflected in international humanitarian law, which acknowledges only “armed conflict not of an international character”. The Court says “internal armed conflict” can be “a cause for granting subsidiary protection only where the degree of indiscriminate violence reaches such a high level that an applicant for subsidiary protection would face a real risk of suffering serious and individual threat to his life or person solely on account of his presence in the territory concerned”. The Court concludes that a finding that there is an armed conflict must not be made conditional upon the intensity of the armed confrontations, the level of organisation of the armed forces involved or the duration of the conflict. (FG/transl.fl)