Chapter 6 examines how the reasons for persecution are applied and interpreted by appellate authorities when individuals flee contemporary armed conflicts. It claims that due to appellate authorities’ conventional warfare perspective and the requirement of singling out and heightened standard of proof, there is limited judicial engagement with the Refugee Convention reasons in light of widespread violence. Instead, the Refugee Convention reasons for persecution are applied solely in light of the individual circumstances of appellants where these are considered to amount to singling out. Accordingly, there is a general failure to adequately consider actual or imputed Refugee Convention reasons for persecution. Where appellate authorities find that appellants have been singled out, they interpret the Refugee Convention ground of (imputed) political opinion too narrowly and fail to acknowledge women’s experiences of gendered violence. The chapter argues that violence is in fact motivated by identity politics on the basis of real or imputed reasons such as sex, ethnicity, race, religion, political opinion or social group and that therefore violence is not felt indiscriminately by persons fleeing armed conflicts. The chapter highlights the significance of imputed political opinion as a Refugee Convention ground in light of the nature of political violence and discrimination.

Chapter 5 examines how an essential element of the Refugee Convention definition, namely the ‘well-founded fear of being persecuted’, is applied and interpreted by judicial authorities when appellants flee contemporary armed conflicts. It sets out that only appellants who had experienced past persecution or singling out had their claim examined under the Refugee Convention. The chapter also discusses the finding that although appellate authorities have some awareness of gender norms, these are considered fixed, such that any departure from them is disbelieved and results in a negative risk assessment. Appellate authorities in the EU thus apply a higher standard of proof than warranted in international refugee law. In effect, this has led to a modification of the standard of proof in international refugee law as it is now equated with the assessment of credibility, which itself can be highly gendered. The chapter claims that the practice acts as barrier to the international protection of persons fleeing contemporary armed conflicts. Further, the failure to examine the general conditions of violence in contemporary armed conflicts is contrary to the obligations of states under international law.

Chapter 4 explores how appellate authorities in the EU understand and approach situations of armed conflict. This chapter claims that appellate authorities approach situations of armed conflict predominantly through the perspective of conventional warfare and a notion of territoriality. Such a perspective fails to acknowledge that one of the main strategies of fighting parties is to exercise political control over territory by forcibly displacing and terrorising populations through highly visible forms of human rights violations. The findings bring to the fore the misconceptions regarding the application of the Refugee Convention to persons fleeing armed conflicts, namely a perceived dichotomy between a risk of individual persecution and a risk arising from widespread violence. The research challenges appellate authorities’ conflation of asymmetrical warfare with lower levels of violence and less serious forms of violence contrary to knowledge in the field of feminist and security studies indicating that non-conventional armed conflicts are in fact characterised by armed groups’ relative control over the exercise of strategic, and thus political, violence. The chapter concludes that the existence of two distinct legal statuses in the EU based on reasons for flight operates as an obstacle to the development of international refugee law.