Main Debates
- Is the 1951 Geneva Convention adequate in the context of forced displacement?
- How can the protection needs of victims of generalised violence and armed conflict be met?
- Should there be a ‘sliding scale’ or other connection between the various kinds of protection needs and the ensuing entitlements?
- Is complementary protection a humanitarian issue under state discretion or a matter of state duty?
Main Points
- Limitations of 1951 Geneva Convention give rise to the need for complementary forms of protection
- Role of international human rights treaties in establishing protection standards to be accorded to persons who fall outside of the 1951 Geneva Convention
- Distinction between complementary protection and stay for compassionate or practical reasons.
Soft Law
- UNHCR EXCOM, ’General Conclusion on international protection’, No. 87 (L), 1999.
- UNHCR EXCOM, ’General Conclusion on international protection’, No. 89 (LI), 2000.
- UNHCR EXCOM, ‘Conclusion on the provision on international protection including through complementary forms of protection’, Conclusion No. 103 ((LVI), 2005.
UNHCR Documents
- UNHCR, ‘Providing International Protection Including Through Complementary Forms of Protection’, 2 June 2005.
- UNHCR, ‘The International Protection of Refugees: Complementary Forms of Protection’, April 2001.
- UNHCR, ’Coping with contemporary conflicts: 'Conflict refugees' and the 1951 Convention protection regime’, Opening lecture, 23 April 2013.
- UNHCR, ’Summary Conclusions on the interpretation of the extended refugee definition in the 1984 Cartagena Declaration’, Roundtable 15 and 16 October 2013, Montevideo, Uruguay, 7 July 2014.
- UNHCR, ’Summary conclusions on international protection of persons fleeing armed conflict and other situations of violence’, Roundtable 13 and 14 September 2012, Cape Town, South Africa, 20 December 2012.
Readings
Core
- R. Mandal, Protection Mechanisms Outside of the 1951 Convention (‘Complementary Protection’), UNHCR Legal and Protection Policy Research Series, (Geneva: UNHCR, 2005).
- R. Plender and N. Mole, ‘Beyond the Geneva Convention: Constructing a De Facto Right of Asylum from International Human Rights Instruments’, in F. Nicholson and P. Twomey (eds), Refugee Rights and Realities. Evolving International Concepts and Regimes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 81–105.
- V. Holzer, The 1951 Refugee Convention and the Protection of People Fleeing Armed Conflict and Other Situations of Violence, September 2012, PPLA/2012/05, [Part of the Legal and Protection Policy Research Series for the Division of International Protection].
- V. Oosterveld, Women and Girls Fleeing Conflict: Gender and the Interpretation and Application of the 1951 Refugee Convention, September 2012, PPLA 2012/06 [Part of the Legal and Protection Policy Research Series for the Division of International Protection].
Extended
- J. McAdam, ‘The Refugee Convention as a Rights Blueprint for Persons in Need of International Protection’, in J. McAdam (ed.), Forced Migration, Human Rights and Security (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008), pp. 263–282.
- J. McAdam, Complementary Protection in International Refugee Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
- J. Vedsted-Hansen, ‘Assessment of the Proposal for an EC Directive on the Notion of Refugee and Subsidiary Protection from the Perspective of International Law’, in D.Bouteillet-Paquet (ed.), Subsidiary Protection of Refugees in the European Union: Complementing the Geneva Convention? (Brussels: Bruylant, 2002), pp. 57–78.