Lister, ‘LGBTQ Asylum and Refugee Protection’, 2024

Matthew Lister, ‘LGBTQ Asylum and Refugee Protection: Problems and Prospects’, 52 Capital University Law Review 129 (2024)

Abstract (Introduction excerpt)

Despite marked improvements in rights for LGBTQ persons around the world, significant problems remain. In many countries, LGBTQ persons face significant discrimination, lack of protection from harm by non-state actors, and persecution from their own governments. This article examines when and why protection under the UN Refugee Convention should be granted to those seeking asylum or refugee status because of maltreatment related to their LGBTQ status. To this end, Part II shows how LGBTQ asylum seekers straightforwardly fit into the definition of a “refugee” set out in the UN Refugee Convention. Subsequent Parts address how to overcome some potential complications arising out of the sorts of harms faced by LGBTQ applicants without significant modifications to the standard refugee definition. This article also shows how providing refugee protection to LGBTQ applicants fits well with two competing approaches to providing refugee protection, one which I have elsewhere defended, and the ones offered by Mathew Price and, in a somewhat different way, David Owen. That LGBTQ asylum claims can fit with both approaches helps show the soundness of the general analysis. At the same time, the different implications that follow from providing asylum or refugee protection for LGBTQ applicants on these different approaches helps make explicit their distinct features, allowing for a clearer appraisal of them.