Targetability as Credibility: The Judiciary and Refugee Status Determination in South Korea

Abstract

Credibility assessment is a central yet contested element of refugee status determination (RSD) across jurisdictions, with adjudicators often weighing extralegal signals of trustworthiness to determine who qualifies for protection. This paper advances the study of credibility and refugee recognition by empirically operationalizing a key but underexamined evaluative logic in judicial reasoning—“targetability,” or the perceived likelihood that an applicant would attract the attention of persecutors if returned. The analysis draws on a uniquely comprehensive dataset of 134 asylum litigation cases adjudicated in South Korea's first-level courts between 2005 and 2018. South Korea offers a critical case for examining the judicial construction of credibility: despite its advanced democratic institutions, it maintains one of the most restrictive asylum systems globally, with an exceptionally low refugee recognition rate. I find that courts predominantly deem applicants credible when they demonstrate sustained active engagement in politically or socially sensitive causes, a degree of public visibility, and verifiable evidence of past persecution. Over time, these traits have redefined the institutional standard for credibility itself, privileging publicly legible forms of vulnerability and narrowing the scope of what refugeehood can entail. By specifying how “targetability” is operationalized in practice, the study contributes to broader comparative debates on the extralegal construction of credibility and the judiciary's role in shaping access to refugee protection.