Protection Mechanisms Outside of the 1951 Convention ("Complementary Protection")

This study explores the variety of ways in which states have provided protection from removal for individuals falling outside the scope of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol. The aim is to inform UNHCR’s recommendations on the principles to be articulated in the proposed ExCom conclusion. From the outset, the study recognises that ‘complementary protection’ is not a term of art defined in any international instrument, rather a phrase which has emerged over the last decade to describe an increasingly-apparent phenomenon in industrialised countries of relief from removal/deportation being granted to asylum seekers who have failed in their asylum claim.