Interpretation of Subsidiary Protection in the European Asylum System

The article addresses subsidiary protection, a form of international protection in the European Union, currently governed by Directive 2011/95/ES or Qualification Directive. Subsidiary protection was incorporated in the EU law on the basis of the EU Member States practices, complementing the protection granted by the 1951 Refugee Convention. Interpretation of the legal construct is often challenging due to a very limited basis for interpretation in the Directive, its travaux préparatoires and CJEU case law. That, consequently, leads to different applications of subsidiary protection among the Member States. The article focuses on the identification of the elements of subsidiary protection definition, which are causing major difficulties in interpretation. Interpretational guidelines supported by the CJEU, the European Court of Human Rights and Slovenian courts case law are provided for each of the elements. The article’s conclusion is a critical observation on the intended Common European Asylum System reform and expected adoption of the Qualification Regulation since the proposal of the Qualification Regulation does not offer a more solid basis for interpretation of subsidiary protection. Key words: international protection, European asylum law, subsidiary protection, Diakité, Elgafaji, Qualification Directive II, Qualification Regulation, Slovenian International Protection Act.