'The Ring of Truth': A Case Study of Credibility Assessment in Particular Social Group Refugee Determinations

Credibility assessment has always been a major issue in refugeedeterminations and its importance increases in the context ofwidespread introduction of ‘fast-track’ processesand the manifest trans-national trend to truncate (or indeedremove) avenues for review. This article explores the practiceof credibility assessment in lower level tribunals using a casestudy of over 1000 particular social group (PSG) ground decisionsmade on the basis of sexual orientation over the past fifteenyears. Credibility played an increasingly major role in claimrefusals, and negative credibility assessments were not alwaysbased on well-reasoned or defensible grounds. The article usesthis specific case study in order to found recommendations forstructural and institutional change aimed at improving moregenerally the credibility assessment process in refugee determinations.     

Forced Marriage as a Harm in Domestic and International Law

This article reports on our analysis of 120 refugee cases from Australia, Canada, and Britain where an actual or threatened forced marriage was part of the claim for protection. We found that forced marriage was rarely considered by refugee decision makers to be a harm in and of itself. This finding contributes to understanding how gender and sexuality are analysed within refugee law, because the harm of forced marriage is experienced differently by lesbians, gay men and heterosexual women. We contrast our findings in the refugee case law with domestic initiatives in Europe aimed at protecting nationals from forced marriages both within Europe and elsewhere. We pay particular attention to British initiatives because they are in many ways the most far-reaching and innovative, and thus the contrast with the response of British refugee law is all the more stark.     

Adjudicating Fear of Witchcraft Claims in Refugee Law

In refugee applications involving witchcraft‐related violence (WRV), those accused of witchcraft are largely women, and those fearing witchcraft are more often men. This is one of two interrelated articles reporting on cases where claimants feared harm from witchcraft or occult practices. It argues that WRV is a manifestation of gender‐related harm, one which exposes major failings in the application of refugee jurisprudence. Systemic inattention to the meaning and application of the Convention ground of religion, combined with gender insensitivity in analysis, meant that claims were frequently reconfigured by decision makers as personal grudges. The fear of witchcraft cases pose an acute ontological challenge to refugee status determination, as the claimed harm falls outside what is understood to be objective, verifiable, or Convention‐related. Male applicants struggled to make their claims comprehensible as a result of the feminized and ‘irrational’ characterization of witchcraft fears and beliefs.     

Unlikely Fissures and Uneasy Resonances: Lesbian Co-mothers,Surrogate Parenthood and Fathers’ Rights

This article explores commonalities between parental claims for lesbian co-mothers and other contexts in which intention is a key aspect to family formation for (mostly) heterosexual families: in particular, surrogacy and pre-birth disputes over embryos. Through a series of case studies drawn from recent reproductive controversies, the paper uses the lens of empathy to argue for social or non-genetic modes of parenthood connecting lesbian mothers and other ‘reproductive outsiders’.