Juss, ‘Sexual Orientation and the Sexualisation of Refugee Law’, 2015

Satvinder Juss, ‘Sexual Orientation and the Sexualisation of Refugee Law’, 2015 International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, 22(1), 128-153

Abstract

It is now clear that hj (Iran) in 2010 left many questions unresolved. The development of the law was not consistent with customary international law, ‘sexual orientation rights’ were unjustifiably elevated above political and religious rights in refugee law, ‘social pressures’ leading to ‘living discreetly’ could not be distinguished so easily from ‘political pressures’, and the steps required for proof of sexuality to be established were left unexplained by the uk Supreme Court. As a result, and as this article shows, the refugee become a space for politics, not as an exception to politics, the world became divided into territorial spaces and places of ‘barbarism’ and ‘civility’, Orientalist mappings showed a world incapable of self-governance and in turmoil – and the orientation of refugee law became altogether more ‘sexualised’.