At the end of the rainbow: where next for the queer refugee? Understanding queer refugees’ lives: moving from sexual conduct to identity in sexual orientation/identity asylum cases in England and Wales

Abstract

A lacuna currently exists where the academic literature does not address the cannon of England and Wales refugee protection cases based on sexual identity, through the prism of litigation, policy and academic investigation from the stance of the activist lawyer. The thesis addresses the phases of case law development in England and Wales, from conduct, to discretion and then to identity and perception, to lead to ‘a’ proposed route to sanctuary, through the ‘narrative of difference’ via this shift in focus. The 2010 judgment of the UK Supreme Court in HJ (Iran) whilst providing an end to reasonable discretion, continues to provide a route to refuse sanctuary to through Lord Rodger’s guidelines on ‘voluntary discretion unconnected to persecution’ exclusionary limb. Challenging this barrier to sanctuary, the thesis assembles a collection of tools to defeat discretion including EU law, forensic analysis of the ‘test’ and the use of the DSSH model in a ‘safe space’ to obtain the ‘narrative of difference’. By drawing together these threads through the portal of (imputed) social group, the non-conformity of the Queer Refugee (i.e. not straight enough) person seeking asylum, can be readily identified by the potential persecutor, rendering discretion redundant.

Date of Award	1 Jun 2019
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	King's College London
Supervisor	Satvinder Juss (Supervisor)