Consistency in Refugee Decision-Making: A Judicial Perspective

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which progress has been made towards achieving greater consistency in refugee law decision-making. It is pointed out that consistency is not necessarily an end in itself and is only a virtue in the service of fair and just decision-making. The backdrop to the article is the fact that many recent studies have highlighted that decision-making is still too much of a lottery. In order to aid analysis use is made of the distinction between two dimensions of a claim for asylum: the individual dimension and the country dimension. Applying this distinction it is suggested that the world of refugee decision-making can be divided into three segments: decision-making by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; non-European decision-making; and European decision-making.