Psychological Research Evidence in Refugee Status Determination

Abstract

This paper presents evidence that refugee status decision makers make assumptions about how humans think and act that are contrary to decades of scientific evidence about human behaviour and cognition (e.g. memory, risk assessment) – including studies and reviews of studies specifically focused on the RSD context. This evidence is not made available to decision makers. In contrast, decision makers regularly benefit from systems and procedures providing relevant, up to date, methodologically sound, impartial, independent, balanced expert evidence pertaining to country of origin information (COI). This paper proposes similar processes for the collation, assessment, and presentation of psychological evidence in order to ensure fairer, more sustainable refugee status decisions.