Assessing the Credibility of Asylum Claims: EU and UK Approaches Examined

To be recognised as a refugee it is necessary for the asylum claimant to demonstrate that they have a well-founded fear of persecution for one of the convention reasons. This test is usually broken down into two principal components: the subjective element of whether the claimant fears persecution and the objective element of whether there are reasonable grounds for believing that the subjective fear of persecution is objectively well-founded. While much legal analysis has been devoted to the legal tests governing the determination of refugee status (e.g. the meaning and application of “persecution”, “membership of a particular social group” and the “internal flight alternative”), the majority of claims are determined on their individual factual circumstances. This paper examines and compares the approaches taken by decision-makers in both UK and EU law toward the assessment of credibility.