Judicial interpretation of refugeehood: A critical comparative analysis with special reference to contemporary British, French and German jurisprudence

The subject matter of the present thesis is the substantive law of refugee status as applied and, consequently, interpreted by the competent domestic courts of three specific European states: the United Kingdom, France and the Federal Republic of Germany. The critical comparative research and analysis have focused solely on the judicial interpretation of the refugee status inclusion clauses which determine the substantive aspects of refugeehood and the individual eligibility for refugee status. Apart from the definitional provision of the 1951/1967 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the basic legal prism of refugeehood determination in the UK and in France, regard has also been had, in the case of German case law, to the German constitutional asylum provision. The first Part of the thesis consists of an examination and analysis of the position and character of the legal conceptualisation of refugeehood in contemporary international law, and in the theoretical context of its judicial interpretation, with particular reference made to the role that the contemporary law of treaty interpretation may well play in the development of a principled, modern refugee status adjudication. Part Two of the present thesis concentrates on the comparative judicial interpretation of the notion of persecution in the framework of the established international legal concept of refugeehood, stressing in particular the following constitutive elements of persecution: the principle of refugee exodus, and the element of causation between persecution and flight; the rule of the subsidiarity of internal and external asylum; the substance, role and forms of persecution, especially in a human rights law perspective; the polymorphous nature of the agents of persecution, and, finally, the judicial prognosis of persecution in refugee status law. The third and final Part of the thesis consists of a comparative analytical examination of British, French and German judicial interpretation regarding the aetiological framework of refugee persecution, viz. the fundamental and internationally established grounds for persecution: ethnic origin, religion, political opinion and the refugee's membership in a particular social group. The thesis concludes with a critical overview and evaluation of the potential role that a contemporary, principled European domestic judicial interpretation of the legal concept of refugeehood may and should play, especially in the context of the developing common legal system relating to refugee protection in Europe