Adjudicating Refugee and Asylum Status: The Role of Witness, Expertise, and Testimony is a timely and promising title for anyone interested in the practicalities of assisting asylum seekers in court. The book provides an insightful, informative, and broad view of the complexities of asylum cases and the role experts play in helping the judiciary understand these cases. The work is a collection of essays from scholars and practitioners focusing on the US and UK. The central piece of evidence in an asylum case is that of the applicant. To establish the credibility of the applicant the reviewing state seeks to document the situation in the country of origin. In addition, as the book highlights, there is an increasing role for expert input, such as country condition reports, biomedical and psychiatric evaluation, forensic linguistic analysis, and the like. ‘Experts are increasingly called upon to lend credibility and corroborate the applicant’s testimony of both events that occurred in the past (past persecution) and the risk that they will occur in the future should the applicant be returned to his or her country of origin’ (p 2).
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Julia Muraszkiewicz (2016) studied this question.