Case No. UKUT-00544-(IAC)

the Court, having provided a definition of internal armed conflict at [28], reaffirmed in [30] its view that for civilians as such to qualify for protection under Article 15(c) they would need to demonstrate that indiscriminate violence was at a high level: ’30. Furthermore, it should be borne in mind that the existence of an internal armed conflict can be a cause for granting subsidiary protection only where confrontations between a State’s armed forces and one or more armed groups or between two or more armed groups are exceptionally considered to create a serious and individual threat to the life or person of an applicant for subsidiary protection for the purposes of Article 15(c) of Directive 2004/83 because the degree of indiscriminate violence which characterises those confrontations reaches such a high level that substantial grounds are shown for believing that a civilian, if returned to the relevant country or, as the case may be, to the relevant region, would – solely on account of his presence in the territory of that country or region – face a real risk of being subject to that threat (see, to that effect, Elgafaji, paragraph 43).’ At [31] the Court reaffirmed the view it expressed in Elgafaji at [39] that Article 15(c) also contains (what UNHCR has termed) a “sliding scale” such that “the more the applicant is able to show that he is specifically affected by reason of factors particular to his personal circumstances, the lower the level of indiscriminate violence required for him to be eligible for subsidiary protection.” The Court thereby recognised that a person may still be accorded protection even when the general level of violence is not very high if they are able to show that there are specific reasons, over and above them being mere civilians, for being affected by the indiscriminate violence. In this way the Article 15(c) inquiry is two-pronged: (a) it asks whether the level of violence is so high that there is a general risk to all civilians; (b) it asks that even if there is not such a general risk, there is a specific risk based on the “sliding-scale” notion. 33. In the United Kingdom, the principal decision of the higher courts dealing with Article 15(c) remains QD (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] 1 WLR 689 . QD helpfully explains and indicates how Elgafaji should be applied. In addition we have the guidance set out in