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Please note that this country guidance document has been replaced by a more recent one. The latest versions of country guidance documents are available at /country-guidance. |
Reference period
The following assessment is based on the EASO COI report on the security situation in Nigeria [Security situation]. The general reference period for this chapter is 1 October 2017 – 30 September 2018 and events taking place after September 2018 are not taken into account in the common analysis. Certain information used within this chapter may refer to a different reference period; this is clarified within the text.
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This guidance should be considered valid as long as current events and developments fall within the trends and patterns of violence observed within the reference period of the mentioned COI report. New events and developments that cause substantial changes, new trends or geographical shifts in the violence, may lead to a different assessment. The security situation of a given territory should always be assessed in light of the most up-to-date COI available.
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Legal framework
Article 15(c) QD defines the third type of harm that constitutes a ground for qualification for subsidiary protection. It covers a more general risk of harm and the protection needs which may arise from armed conflict situations.
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| Under Article 15(c) QD, serious harm consists of serious and individual threat to a civilian’s life or person by reason of indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict. |
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In addition to the applicable EU legal instruments, this guidance builds on the most relevant European case law. Two judgments of the CJEU and one judgment of the ECtHR have been taken into account in particular:
► CJEU, Diakité judgment:[25] The judgment is of particular importance for the interpretation of relevant concepts, and in particular of ‘internal armed conflict’.
► CJEU, Elgafaji judgment:[26] The judgment is of importance with regard to the appreciation of the degree of indiscriminate violence and in particular with regard to the application of the ‘sliding scale’. In this judgment, the CJEU further discusses the ‘serious harm’ under the provision of Article 15(c) QD in comparison to the other grounds for granting subsidiary protection and considers the relation between Article 15(c) QD and the ECHR, in particular Article 3 ECHR.
► ECtHR, Sufi and Elmi judgment:[27] It should be noted that ECtHR jurisprudence on Article 3 ECHR is not of direct applicability when discussing the scope and elements of Article 15(c) QD. However, the elements outlined in Sufi and Elmi with regard to the assessment of the security situation in a country and the degree of generalised violence have been consulted in order to design the indicators of indiscriminate violence for the purposes of this common analysis.
The elements to examine under Article 15(c) QD are:
All of these elements have to be fulfilled in order to grant subsidiary protection under Article 15(c) QD.
Common analysis and assessment of the factual preconditions for the possible application of Article 15(c) QD with regard to the situation in Afghanistan is provided in the following sub-sections.