Setting Pace for Strasbourg: Approaches to Gender-Based Asylum Appeals in the EU

• In Event: Courts in the European Union

Abstract

This article examines how European national courts interpret international, supranational, and national law in deciding appeals of denied asylum claims involving gender-based persecution. Using cases available on the European Database of Asylum Law, I build on the work of Michael C. Tolley, who demonstrated that high national courts in four European states rely on EU law and ECtHR rulings to bolster existing rights in national law. By doing so, the courts implement more progressive standards than those required by the EU. For appeals based on gender-based persecution, however, I hypothesize that the imprecise nature of EU-level guidelines and relative silence from the ECtHR on gender-based persecution will lead courts to rely on other sources of law, traditional distinctions between private and public spheres, and domestic concerns in deciding these appeals. Instead of leading to more progressive stances on asylum protection or a more standardized approach to asylum law, these other legal precedents leave European courts with multiple, and often conflicting, options for determining refugee status in cases involving gender-based persecution.

Author

• Patricia Charlotte Rodda, Carroll University