The following blog post summarizes Do Human Rights Treaties Help Asylum-Seekers?: Lessons from the United Kingdom (48 Vand. J. Transnat’l L. 123 (2015)) by Stephen Meili. Several international human rights treaties offer protection to refugees who flee their home countries to escape persecution.. While these treaties have been widely adopted, the effectiveness and consistency of their use in domestic courts by asylum-seekers varies. Why have some human rights instruments as

The U.S. asylum system is noble but flawed. Scholars have long recognized that asylum is a “scarce” political resource, but U.S. law persists in distributing access to asylum based on an asylum seeker’s ability to circumvent migration controls rather than the strength of the asylum seeker’s claim for protection. To apply for asylum, an asylum seeker must either arrange to be smuggled into the United States or lie to the consulate while abroad to obtain a nonimmigrant visa. No

The international community rose to the challenge of addressing mass migration with the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Convention).  The 1951 Convention established several important concepts as binding international law, including the requirements for refugee classification and the principle of non-refoulement.  The duty of non-refoulement prohibits state-parties from expelling or returning a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers or terr

Credibility assessment in refugee status determination (RSD) poses unique challenges when the outcome of asylum applications turns on the question of whether an asylum seeker is actually a member of a persecuted religious minority.  These cases require secular adjudicators to delve into matters of religious identity and faith that are, by their nature, subjective and beyond the realm of objective analysis.  This Article explores practical means of addressing this challenge th

The United Nations Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees define the requirements for qualification as a “refugee” and the protection that should be afforded to qualifying persons.  Satisfying the Convention definition of refugee usually qualifies a person for asylum; thus, interpretation of its requirements can determine whether an alien is able to escape alleged persecution in his or her country of origin.  Currently, 147 countries are parties to the Con