Can "extreme poverty" protect against refoulement? Economic refugees in the light of recent case law of the European Court of Human Rights

“Economic refugees” largely remain outside the international protection regimes of refugee and human rights law. Nevertheless, recent case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) opens up limited possibilities for economic refugees to rely on Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Most ground-breaking and remarkable was the case of MSS v Belgium and Greece in which the ECtHR recognized the living conditions of “most extreme poverty” of the applicant in Greece as falling within the scope of Article 3 ECHR. With the subsequent cases of Sufi and Elmi v UK, SHH v UK and Tarakhel v Switzerland, the innovative character of MSS v Belgium and Greece has been challenged, redefined and put into perspective. The main question asked is the following: Can, and if so, under what circumstances does, the deportation to situations of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) violations caused by conditions of extreme poverty form a violation of the non-refoulement principle? The delimitation and use of the concepts of exceptional circumstances and vulnerability are especially intriguing in this regard and are the main focus of the paper.