Research Seminar: The Convention grounds in sharp relief: refugee law doctrine through the looking-glass of sexual orientation cases with Dr. Janna Wessels, VU Amsterdam

This will be a hybrid event - participation is possible both in Uppsala and on Zoom.  The zoom link is found here https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/66102713868 .

Those wishing to participate, please email rebecca.stern@uppsalaforum.uu.se by the 30th of January. The passcode will be sent out to the participants before the seminar.

Abstract
Persecution is commonly thought of as the core notion of the refugee definition. Much academic thought has been invested into defining this somewhat obscure notion. The same cannot be said for the reasons for persecution, the so-called Convention grounds. Although the definition laid out in the 1951 Refugee Convention requires that persecution must be feared for race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, these reasons have only been conceptualised to a limited extent. By approaching refugee law doctrine through the looking-glass of sexual orientation cases, this talk will throw the Convention grounds into sharp relief: It will argue that the conceptual challenges raised by these cases point to an underconceptualisation of the Convention grounds, and their role and place in the refugee definition, which not only troubles sexuality-based claims, but refugee law doctrine in its entirety.

Speaker Bio
Janna Wessels, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, VU Amsterdam, gives a talk on discretion reasoning and concealment in the context of asylum law. The talk takes her highly praised 2021 book The Concealment Controversy: Sexual Orientation, Discretion Reasoning and the Scope of Refugee Protection (CUP 2021).