Denying Refugee Status: Inferences and Assumptions

In Canada and elsewhere, most decisions to deny refugee status rest on a finding that the claimant was lying (Evans Cameron 2023). This project explores the law and psychology of deception judgments in the refugee status context.

• How do decision-makers decide that a refugee claimant is lying?
• What inferences do they rely on to justify these conclusions?
• What assumptions underlie these inferences, and how well-founded are these assumptions?
• What legal structures constrain the drawing of such inferences, and what normative principles should guide the development of these structures?

This project looks to the field of cognitive psychology, to the law of evidence, and to logics of legal reasoning to improve the law and practice of refugee status decision-making.

Earlier work on this project was funded by grants from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Ongoing work is now part of the Bridging Divides project.