Subsidiary protection is international protection for persons

seeking asylum An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country, and makes in that other country a formal application for the right of asylum according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 14. A pers ...

who do not qualify as

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

s. In European law, Directive 2004/83/EC defines the minimum standards for qualifying for subsidiary protection status. The Directive was later added to with Directive 2011/95/EU, which states that uniform, European states for persons eligible for subsidiary protection and the content of the protection granted. In the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

, a person eligible for subsidiary protection status means a third country national or stateless who would face a real risk of suffering serious harm if s/he returned to the country of origin. Serious harm is defined, according to the Code of Entry and Residence of Foreigners and of the Right to Asylum, as the risk of: "''(a)

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

or execution; or (b)

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

inhuman or degrading treatment Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDT) is treatment of persons which is contrary to human rights or dignity, but is not classified as torture. It is forbidden by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3 of the European Convention ...

or punishment of an applicant in the country of origin; or (c) serious and individual threat to a civilian's life or person by reasons of indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict.''" According to the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal D ...

, everyone has a right to seek asylum from persecution. The person granted refugee status, however, is defined by the Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees as a person who risks being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion in his or her country of origin.

Exclusions from Subsidiary Protection Status

A person is excluded from subsidiary protection if the European Member State believes that s/he has committed a serious crime there, is guilty of acts contrary the Charter of the United Nations' article 1 and 2, or if s/he is a danger to the society, or if s/he has committed a

crime against humanity Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as ...

. Furthermore, the subsidiary protection status may be removed from persons when the circumstances leading to the protection status have ceased to exist or have changed so that the person no longer faces a risk of serious harm.

France

Since 2003, the subsidiary protection is given by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, or OFPRA (Office français de protection des réfugiés et des apatrides). It can also be given by decision of the National Court for Right of Asylum or CNDA (Cour nationale du droit d'asile), which is the institution in charge of the instruction of legal appeal against OFPRA decisions. Both the OFPRA and the CNDA have to consider specifically and systematically the right to benefit from the subsidiary protection as soon as the asylum seeker does not fulfil the legal conditions to be recognized as a refugee (as defined by first article of the 28th of July 1951

Geneva convention upright=1.15, The original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian t ...

). When they benefit from the subsidiary protection, individuals are placed under the legal and administrative protection of the OFPRA. They will have a pluriannual resident card, limited to 4 years. During the whole period of their subsidiary protection, they can't go back to their country of origin.

References

{{reflist Right of asylum in the European Union de:Subsidiärer Schutz