Cross-Border Disaster Displacement and Non-Refoulement under Article 3 of the ECHR: An Analysis of the European Union and Austria

Development summary

Margit Ammer and Monika Mayrhofer’s article in the International Journal of Refugee Law asks whether non-refoulement under Article 3 ECHR and subsidiary protection under Article 15(b) of the EU Qualification Directive can fill the protection gap for people displaced across borders by disasters and climate change. It addresses that question through a qualitative analysis of 646 Austrian appellate decisions on international protection and concludes that the livelihood approach used by Austrian courts may allow disaster impacts to be taken into account in the Article 3 real-risk assessment, while the European Court of Human Rights’ suggested ‘medical cases’ approach for naturally occurring phenomena is not adequate.