Complementary Forms Of International Protection In The European Union And In Switzerland

The subsidiary protection under EU law and the temporary admission under the Swiss Federal Act on Foreign Nationals and Integration complete a legal gap in the field of international protection. They introduce a system of protection for persons threatened by the most grave human rights infringements but who do not meet the strict requirements of the Geneva Refugee Convention for granting refugee status. At the core of international protection lays the refoulement prohibition. There are two main pillars of protection against refoulement in public international law, which are of great importance: the refoulement prohibition under Art. 33 of the 1951 Geneva Convention and the human rights refoulement prohibition, derived from Art. 3 ECHR. Despite the common roots of complementary forms of protection, important differences can be noticed both in the nature of the two institutions and in their interpretation by the courts. Aim of this paper is to portray the conditions under which complementary protection is granted and to emphasize their different embedment within the legal system.