THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW IN CLARIFYING THE NOTION OF MEMBERSHIP IN A PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUP AS A REASON FOR ACQUIRING REFUGEE STATUS

"Membership in a Particular Social Group" is one of the five protected reasons for obtaining refugee status in the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the most confusing one. To clarify this ambiguity and facilitate the recognition of Particular Social Group, scholars have sought to provide four main criteria which are persecution, ejusdem generic, the principle of non-discrimination and the violations of human rights. A brief examination of the national jurisprudence of the refugee host states proves that on the one side, the role of the first criterion, persecution, has received only a limited support and on the other side none of the other criteria has been accepted as the main and only way to identify a Particular Social Group. Rather, it seems that the combination of the three remained factors has led national courts to refer to protected characteristics and social cognizability as the constituent elements of a Particular Social Group.