Claims for Protection Based on Religion or Belief

Persecution for reasons of religion is one of the five grounds enumerated in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. The travauxpriparatoires do not include any discussion of religion as a Convention ground for protection. The Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status contains three paragraphs (71-73) addressing religious persecution, which demonstrate the intent that the Convention ground be interpreted by reference to international norms on freedom of thought, conscience and religion. To date there has been very little interpretive guidance on religion-based claims. The approach to determining the key elements in a refugee adjudicationwhat is a religion, what constitutes persecution in the context of religious practice, when is the persecution 'for reasons of' the individual's religious beliefsare less clear today than they were when the 1951 Refugee Convention was drafted. This article surveys thejurisprudence of religion-based claims of four State parties to the Convention (the United States, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom), identifies relevant issues and trends, and proposes an analytical framework for religionbased claims which is derived from international norms of protection for religion and belief.