Common European Asylum System in a Changing World

protection under Article15 (c). In exceptional situations, the applicant may be eligible for subsidiary protection where the degree of indiscriminate violence of an armed conflict reaches such a high level that substantial grounds are shown for believing that they may face a real risk of being subject to threat of harm based solely on account of their presence in the country or region of origin. Diakite, C-285/12 The case concerns relations between the EU legal order and international law . Mr. Diakité, a Guinean national, who has repeatedly applied for asylum in Belgium since 2008 due to the sustained violence and repression in his home country. The Belgian authorities had denied him both refugee status as well as subsidiary protection, finding that there was no ‘armed conflict’ in Guinea as defined in international humanitarian law. In this case the CJEU interpreted the concept of “internal armed conflict” (Article 15(c) of the QD) for the purpose of granting subsidiary protection under EU law. The CJEU ruled that ‘internal armed conflict’ has a definition independent of international humanitarian law and interpreted the concept in an EU asylum law context autonomously. Qualification Directive (recast) Directive 2011/95/EU of 13 December 2011 standards for the qualification of persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection F., C-473/16 F., a Nigerian national applied for asylum in Hungary, claiming that he feared persecution in his country of origin on account of his homosexuality. His application was rejected on the basis of an expert’s report prepared by a psychologist that concluded that it was not possible to confirm the applicant’s sexual orientation. The CJEU concluded in this case that national authorities can order experts’ reports with the purpose of assisting in the assessment of the facts and circumstances relating to a declared sexual orientation of an applicant, provided that the procedures for these reports are consistent with fundamental rights. However, the examining authority, courts or tribunal must not base their decision solely on the conclusions of an expert’s report and are not bound by these conclusions when assessing the applicant’s statements relating to their sexual orientation. Alheto, C-585/16 This case concerns a stateless woman from Palestine who was registered as a refugee with the UNRWA and whose application for asylum in Bulgaria was denied on grounds that she had not proven any risk of persecution under Article 1(A) of the 1951 Refugee Convention. Where a person is registered with the UNRWA and then later applies for international protection in a EU Member State, such persons are, in principle excluded from refugee status in the EU unless it becomes evident, on the basis of an individualised assessment of all relevant evidence, that their personal safety is at serious risk and it is impossible for the UNRWA to guarantee that the living conditions are compatible with its mission and that due to these circumstances the individual has been forced to leave the UNRWA area of operations.

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