SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLEPlausibility assessment in refugee status determinationDOUGLAS McDONALDCredibility assessment is fundamental to any functional, sustainable system of refugee status determination (RSD). Without some form of assessment as to whether asylum seekers are telling the truth about their claims, governments and relevant agencies will be incapable of determining whether individual claimants truly possess well-founded fears of persecution on account of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, and whether they are hence entitled to protection under the Refugees Convention.1 The integrity of any system of refugee protection (including its ability to marshal political and popular support) requires the existence of mechanisms for detecting fraudulent or unsubstantiated claims. One of the most commonly-employed measures of a claims veracity is its plausibility that is, whether it is possible that the events claimed by an asylum seeker to have prompted their flight from their country of origin could actually have occurred, and whether it is possible that the asylum seeker could have acted in the manner they have claimed for the reasons they have stated.In practice, however, any process for determining the truthfulness of asylum seekers claims (including as to whether they have actually experienced persecution in their countries of origin)2 is fraught with difficulty. In the unique context of refugee law, asylum seekers may lack substantial corroborative or documentary evidence for their claims or come from a very different cultural and political context to the official responsible for RSD (RSD officer). In these circumstances, metrics which may otherwise indicate falsified or exaggerated claims may prove unreliable guides to the truth or falsity of the events described.This article critiques some of the methods commonly employed by RSD officers in finding that asylum seekers accounts of their experiences are implausible or otherwise could not possibly have occurred at described. This article emphasises the need for greater sensitivity to the limits of available country information (particularly country information deriving from government sources) and the substantial difference in cultural and political norms between asylum seekers countries of origin and the jurisdictions in which RSD most commonly occurs. This article draws upon the authors experiences as a consultant to a Sydney law firm with a significant practice in refugee law.Credibility assessment: context and challengesAlthough credibility assessment occurs in many fields of law, it poses unique difficulties in the context of RSD. RSD officers will have only limited evidence against which to assess the credibility of asylum seekers claims far less than in most other fields of law.3 The geographical, cultural and political distance between the country in which the alleged events (or experiences of persecution) occurred and the country in which asylum is sought creates a unique degree of difficulty and uncertainty in determining whether individual applicants are telling the truth.4Asylum seekers will seldom be able to corroborate their claims through documentary evidence. Their individual experiences will rarely have been reported by the media or NGOs while in their countries of origin. Furthermore, the nature of persecution (which is frequently arbitrary, unofficial and unlawful even by the de jure laws of the country responsible) and of flight to escape persecution (which is frequently carried out in extreme haste, carrying as little evidence of ones identity and of ones experiences as is possible) often means that material evidence of ones experiences cannot be produced.5 (The distinction between credibility assessment in refugee law and in other fields is hence heightened by the fact that, as Byrne notes, the very circumstances of uncorroborated testimony that would deem a normal case weak may, in asylum cases, be the indicator of the most genuine of claims.6) To this end, the UNHCRs Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status urges that [t]he requirement of evidence should not be too strictly applied in view of the difficulty of proof inherent in the special situation in which an applicant for refugee status finds himself,7 and notes that cases in which an applicant can provide evidence of all his statements will be the exception rather than the rule.8The principal source in most assessments of credibility will hence be interviews conducted with the applicant for asylum.9 In some cases, oral testimony may be the only evidence provided by the applicant at all.10 In Australia, these interviews are generally conducted by the RSD officer responsible for deciding whether Australia has protection obligations towards the applicant. In light of the paucity of other sources of evidence, the International Association of Refugee Law Judges (IARLJ) have declared that [i]n circumstances where there is no reason to doubt the totality of a claimants evidence of past and present facts, an uncorroborated account can be accepted without further support.11 This reliance upon asylum seekers own narratives of their experiences creates unique challenges in assessing whether these experiences actually occurred. In resolving these challenges, RSD officers must draw upon a wide range of disciplines: they must know the legal constraints upon RSD, understand the applicants social, cultural and political context (sufficient to ask the right questions and gauge the significance of particular answers), exercise forensic skills to effectively conduct the interview and extract information from the asylum seeker, and remain aware of how the asylum seekers psychological state may shape their responses. They must then decide the matter in a way that is both consistent with the Refugees Convention and sensitive to the unique predicament of the refugee in proving their case.12 To make decisions of this nature in the knowledge that an incorrect decision could lead an innocent person to be imprisoned, tortured, or killed is a heavy responsibility.13Assessments of implausibilityAsylum seekers claims are frequently rejected because they appear, to the RSD officer, to be implausible.14 Sometimes, these judgments are made on the basis of country information that an asylum seeker could not possibly have been persecuted by a particular group, or that certain incidents could not possibly have occurred in particular regions of the country of origin. Alternatively, these judgments may be made on little more than the RSD officers sense of how a person would have behaved in particular circumstances: that their reactions to the events they describe are implausible or unreasonable, or that the actions they claim to have taken on behalf of their beliefs, or their identity, are not plausible. As Walter Kalin puts it, [t]oo often officials assume that the way they think is also the way the asylum-seeker thinks.15Given the general rule within administrative law that decision-makers should not make findings on the basis of no evidence16 or based upon irrelevant considerations,17 findings of implausibility should only be made upon satisfaction of a relatively high evidentiary threshold. In W321/01A [2002], Lee J observed that a finding of implausibility requires more than bare assertions; a decision-maker may only make such a finding where the claimed events are inconsistent with other identifiable facts, or else so beyond the human experience of possibilities that they may be said to be inherently unlikely.18 Despite the existence of this high threshold for findings of implausibility, the confidence with which some RSD officers found themselves able to make adverse findings on credibility on the basis that the evidence given by claimants is implausible, incredible or concocted in the absence of clear and cogent evidence was highlighted and condemned by Merkel J in Thevendram.19In addition to the need for evidence, findings of implausibility cannot be made unless scrupulous regard is first paid to the possible role of cultural or political context in shaping the RSD officers sense of what are, and are not, possible or plausible courses of events. Actions which appear implausible from the vantage-point of an Australian decision-maker may be within the bounds of plausibility even regularly experienced within the political, cultural and historical context of an asylum seeker.20 As Sir Thomas Bingham (as he then was) observed in 1985: [N]o judge worth his salt could possibly assume that men of different nationalities, educations, trades, experience, creeds and temperaments would act as he might think he would have done or even which might be quite different in accordance with his concept of what a reasonable man would have done.21However, in practice, many RSD officers proceed upon this unreasonable, unquestioned assumption deciding that certain claimed events or actions are implausible without due regard to the role of culture in shaping individuals actions, including the role of the RSD officers own culture in determining their construction of what is plausible. All too often (as the author has observed in practice), RSD officers make findings on the basis of what an asylum seeker or an agent of persecution would or would not have done in circumstances far removed from those of the decision-maker without evidence sufficient to prove not only that the asylum seekers claimed version of events is unlikely to have occurred, but that it is so far outside the bounds of plausible occurrences that it could only have been fabricated. This approach to plausibility assessment, despite its prevalence, is fatally flawed. Decisions as to plausibility should not be based upon personal conjecture as to what other governments or groups would do in particular circumstances,22 or assume a level of predictability and continuity in governmental decision-making in contexts where nothing of the sort exists.23 The IARLJ (in their proposed EU judicial standards of good practice in credibility assessment) have cautioned against such lapses of self-awareness, emphasising that [a]wareness of the judges own personal theories of truth and risk should be noted by the judge to ensure objectivity is maximised.24 Instead, the plausibility of claimed circumstances should be assessed by reference to the claimants milieu25 including social and political circumstances in their country of origin, the nature of the persecution feared (including the common practices of the agent of persecution responsible) and the characteristics of the claimant themselves, including their cultural, familial and political background. These latter characteristics, in particular, contribute to significant variance as to whether particular forms of conduct are plausible for given individuals; for example, as cautioned by Hugessen J in Samani [1998], [i]t is never particularly persuasive to say that an action is implausible simpl[y] because it may be dangerous for a politically committed person.26In addition to giving greater regard to cultural and contextual difference in determining the likelihood of a given course of events, RSD officers must bear in mind that an event is by no means impossible simply because it is unusual or improbable. The fact that another version of events may have occurred, or even that it would have been more likely to have occurred that way, is not evidence that the asylum seekers account is implausible.27 Although this rule is of course relevant to all forms of legal practice noting, for example, Murphy Js warning that [c]ommon assumptions about improbability of sequences are often wrong, with highly improbable, as well as merely improbable, sequences and combinations constantly occurring28 it is once more uniquely true in refugee law. Members of persecuted minorities (of any kind) may be subjected to unusual, arbitrary or illogical treatment, beyond the norms of what would normally occur (even to other members of that minority at the hands of different individuals); as Schiemann LJ noted in Adam, a member of such a minority might thus be expected to be a candidate for the unusual.29 Similarly, decision-makers must not proceed upon the assumption that agents of persecution in other nations (particularly non-state actors) act in a uniform, predictable fashion, treating like individuals in a like manner. In assessing plausibility, decision-makers must consider aggressors degree of training and discipline, their command structure (for example, whether individual units enjoy a great deal of autonomy and discretion) and their susceptibility to corruption. In Iran, for example, the Basij, a paramilitary organisation, carry out various security functions on behalf of the state (including the suppression of protests and the enforcement of public morals). As the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade report, Basij members often receive very little formal training and may operate without orders or objectives, resulting in unpredictable interactions with civilians.30 Paramilitary groups play an equivalent role in carrying out government objectives (including the persecution of perceived dissenters) in north and east Sri Lanka.31 Claims regarding the actions of groups of this kind known for their ideological fervour, the autonomy of local commanders and operation outside the bounds of the formal state cannot be dismissed as implausible simply because other members of these groups would not act in the same way; a wide degree of internal variation between different cells of such organisations is entirely consistent with their nature.Beyond characteristics specific to the applicants (and the contexts of their claims), regard must be had to inadvertent selection bias in terms of which individuals are able to apply for asylum and to present their claims, and which are not. In most circumstances, for every refugee there are many others in similar circumstances unable to flee from persecution; among the tiny microcosm of a persecuted group able to make a claim for refugee status, those who have been unusually fortunate will inevitably be over-represented.Plausibility and the assessment of country informationEven where determinations of what is and is not plausible are grounded in country information (and hence seemingly in facts, rather than mere assertions), RSD officers need to apply a great deal of scrutiny to the independent sources before them. A lack of information about a particular event is not evidence that this event did not occur;32 the existence of country information should not be used to justify a test of direct corroboration (for example, by searching for references to a particular applicant).33 Similarly, a statement that events of a particular kind do not frequently occur, or that they are rare, is not evidence that they do not happen. As the Hungarian Helsinki Committees CREDO Project have observed, the vast majority of events and facts remain unreported even today,34 with independent country information usually presented in general terms rather than of a kind suited to the specific (and usually highly individual) circumstances of a claim for asylum.35Furthermore, country information may be compromised by undue emphasis upon particular locations, or upon such witnesses as are in a position to communicate with the NGOs or government agencies creating such reports. These witnesses may be higher-profile or more politically active than is the norm (creating the illusion that only high-profile or extensively politically active people may be at risk), or may be unduly partisan or even linked to the agents of persecution themselves. As Goodwin-Gill and McAdam have observed, country of origin information can at best only provide a general impression, more or less detailed, of what is going on in a country; it must be scrutinised and interpreted rather than merely taken at face value in deciding what could (or could not) have plausibly transpired.36 Consequently, the utility of independent country information such as that relied upon by RSD officers in determining whether a given scenario could plausibly have occurred cannot be assumed.37Country information from official sources in the asylum seekers country of origin (such as statements by government officials or government records) must be subject to particular scrutiny as a source for what could or could not plausibly have occurred (as well as in determining whether asylum seekers fears of harm if returned are well-founded). There are undeniably apparent advantages of relying upon official sources over reports from non-government organisations including the states greater financial and logistical capacity to gather information about occurrences in that jurisdiction and the comparative ease with which government views and policy may be ascertained (particularly by national embassies briefing RSD officers in their jurisdiction of origin about country conditions.) However, nominal government policies may mask the existence of persecution in practice, unacknowledged, tolerated or even perpetrated by the government in question. Government sources may prove unreliable where abusive practices flourish at the ground level, despite the nominal opposition of the incumbent regime to such practices. These potential biases or methodological limitations may infect sources produced by the governments of asylum seekers countries of origin (whether those governments are unwilling or merely incapable of protecting vulnerable groups against persecution). They may also seriously limit the reliability of sources prepared by RSD officers own governments (including embassy officials) where these sources convey, rely upon or cite uncritically the pronouncements or policies of governments which allegedly commit or permit persecution. For example, a 2009 report by the Danish Immigration Service with regard to entry and exit procedures into Iran (including the treatment of failed asylum seekers upon their return) provides the observations of several Iranian government officials (including the official responsible for passport border control at Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran) as stating that there are only minor punishments for illegal departure from Iran.38 Such representations from officials of a regime alleged by many asylum seekers and independent observers to view applications for asylum abroad as evidence of dissident political views39 must be viewed with extreme scepticism by decision-makers as an accurate source of country information, despite their official imprimatur (both in their own right and insofar as their views are reported by the Danish Immigration Service, another government agency). Decisions as to what could or could not have plausibly occurred in other nations should not hence rely solely upon representations and information of this kind.Even where embassy officials do not solely rely upon representations from the government of the country in which they are stationed, limits to their capacity to independently gather information may restrict the value of their observations. For example, the Human Rights Law Centre raised serious concerns with regard to the Australian governments inability to monitor the treatment of failed asylum seekers upon their removal to Sri Lanka40 a circumstance which limits the reliability of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trades assessment that failed asylum seekers returning to Sri Lanka are treated along standard procedures applying to all Sri Lankans, regardless of their ethnicity and religion.41 Limits to the Departments capacity to conduct such inquiries (particularly once failed asylum seekers have passed beyond Colombo Airport) are of particular concern given the UK Upper Tribunals observation that: [a]ny risk for those [returning failed asylum seekers] in whom the Sri Lankan authorities are or become interested exists not at the airport, but after arrival in their home area, where their arrival will be verified by the CID or police within a few days.42In these circumstances, an account of mistreatment should not be dismissed as implausible simply because an official source does not testify to the existence of occurrences of this kind, particularly where such events would be beyond an official sources capacity to corroborate. As noted by Judge Driver (in obiter) in SZSFK, [t]he fact that a diplomatic post is not aware of something does not mean that it did not occur. 43Despite the limits of government sources, RSD officers have frequently displayed a preference for official, governmental sources of information over reports from NGOs or other non-state observers,44 including in determining whether claims are plausible. In Australia, this trend has been partially incorporated into policy by Ministerial Direction No 56, which dictates that RSD officers must take account of certain country information assessments prepared by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.45 The fact that RSD officers are bound to give regard to one particular source of information, but not necessarily to others, inevitably gives these sources a privileged position in the decision-making process. This is particularly problematic given the significant evidentiary limitations faced by the Department in preparing such reports (as noted above) and given that such sources have often proven to be at odds with the conclusions presented in NGO reports and other sources of independent commentary, potentially to the detriment of individual asylum seekers. Media coverage of Ministerial Direction No 56 presented its introduction as part of a broader strategy on the part of the government to toughen up the asylum seeker claims process.46This article does not accuse the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of reaching conclusions as to country conditions for politically-inspired reasons, or support particular findings as to which asylum seekers arriving in Australia are legitimate. However, any analysis of the role of country information in RSD must nonetheless acknowledge that assessments by RSD officers own governments have in the past fallen prey to the needs of the political moment. As Matthew E Price writes, country information produced for the purposes of RSD by officials of the US State Department Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs during the 1980s [was] biased toward denying asylum to applicants from friendly countries and granting asylum to applicants from hostile countries.47 The US Immigration and Naturalization Service (as it then was) deferred to such assessments of country conditions in the vast majority of cases (even given their politicisation) on the assumption that the State Department possessed greater knowledge than immigration judges about country conditions.48 (American courts have subsequently treated such assessments with greater scepticism, with US courts of appeals alluding to the perennial concern that the US Department of State softpedals human rights violations by countries that the United States wants to have good relations with.)49As noted above, this article does not accuse the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trades country reports of being the product of an asylum policy bent to accommodate foreign policy interests, such as that which characterised asylum adjudication in the United States in the 1980s.50 However, the American experience is illustrative in two respects it punctures the assumption that government sources (even those produced by RSD officers own nations) are any more reliable or objective than other sources as a guide to potential occurrences in another nation, and it highlights the perils involved in undue reliance (whether directed or not) upon the expertise or disinterestedness of a single form of country information. Official sources are not an inherently reliable, objective or trustworthy guide to what could or could not have plausibly occurred in very different cultural, political and historical circumstances.ConclusionIt is essential to conduct some form of credibility assessment in determining the outcome of asylum seekers claims. In many cases, it will also be crucial to take claims at more than face value, examining whether they could possibly have occurred as claimed. The degree of weight to be afforded to various criteria in individual claims in determining their plausibility is difficult to mandate through statutes, precedents or policies; it will depend to a great extent upon the facts of the case.However, despite the need for individual RSD officers to exercise their discretion, the need for sensitivity and understanding in determining asylum seekers claims under the Refugees Convention must always be paramount, in this regard as in all others. RSD officers must understand what Carnwath LJ (as he then was) termed: the very special human context in which such [asylum] cases are brought, and the need for decisions to show by their reasoning that every factor which might tell in favour of an applicant has properly been taken into account.51RSD officers must be conscious of the limits of their own life experiences and sensitive to the difficulties faced by asylum seekers in describing events which may lie entirely outside of their shared frame of reference; they must consider all alternate possibilities before reaching findings that claims are fraudulent or concocted, including the possibility that a seemingly unbelievable story is plausible within another cultural context; and they must read sources with a critical eye, conscious for the possibility of unreported persecutory acts or of the limits to the authors fact-finding capabilities. Above all, RSD officers must balance the need to ensure compliance with the Convention against the possibility that an asylum seeker may suffer extreme (and potentially irreparable) harm if their claims are not believed. They must temper skepticism and forensic critique with an appreciation of the immense consequences of an erroneous refusal.DOUGLAS McDONALD is a consultant to a law firm in Sydney, as well as an Arts/Law student at the University of Technology, Sydney. This article is based on a presentation given at the 7th NLSIR Symposium on Bridging the Liberty-Security Divide, National Law School of India University, Bangalore, on 22 December 2013. The views expressed are those of the author alone and do not represent the views of his employers. The author thanks Jess Norman, Jess Xu and Maggie Sheen for their helpful feedback in drafting this article. 2014 Douglas McDonaldemail:

REFERENCES1. Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 28 July 1951, 189 UNTS 137 (Refugees Convention) article 1A(2).2. A refugee need not actually have experienced persecution in the past to be entitled to protection under art 1A(2) of the Refugees Convention. The relevant test is future-focused, assessing whether the claimant will face harm in the reasonably foreseeable future if removed. However, having experienced persecution in the past may bolster an asylum seekers argument that such conduct would recur if removed to their country of origin (or to another jurisdiction in which they have a right to reside): James C Hathaway, The Law of Refugee Status (Cambridge University Press, 1991) 88; MIEA v Guo (1997) 191 CLR 559, 574.3. Hungarian Helsinki Committee, Credibility Assessment in Asylum Procedures: A Multidisciplinary Training Module (2013) 10 .4. UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),Beyond Proof: Credibility Assessment in EU Asylum Systems: Full Report (2013) 30 .5. Ibid 32.6. Rosemary Byrne, Assessing Testimonial Evidence in Asylum Proceedings: Guiding Standards from the International Criminal Tribunals (2007) 19 International Journal of Refugee Law 609, 615-6.7. UNHCR, Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, HCR/IP/4/Eng/REV.1 (1979, reedited 1992) [197].8. Ibid [196].9. Arthur Glass, Subjectivity and Refugee Fact-Finding in Jane McAdam (ed), Forced Migration, Human Rights and Security (Hart, 2008) 214.10. UNHCR, above n 4, 33.11. IARLJ, Assessment of Credibility in Refugee and Subsidiary Protection Claims under the EU Qualification Directive (2013) 40 .12. Martin Jones and France Houle, Introduction: Building a Better Refugee Status Determination System (2008) 25(2) Refuge 3, 6.13. The need for a renewed focus on the humanity of decision-makers involved in the assessment process (albeit in a somewhat different context) is discussed in Alex Reilly and Rebecca La Forgia, Secret Enhanced Screening of Asylum Seekers (2013) 38(3) Alternative Law Journal 143, 145146. 14. Amnesty International and Still Human Still Here, A Question of Credibility: Why so many initial asylum decisions are overturned on appeal in the UK (2013) 15 ; Jo Pettitt, Laurel Townhead and Stephanie Huber, The Use of COI in the Refugee Status Determination Process in the UK: Looking Back, Reaching Forward (2008) 25(2) Refuge 182, 188.15. Walter Kalin, Troubled Communication: Cross-Cultural Misunderstandings in the Asylum Hearing (1986) 20 International Migration Review 230, 234.16. The Queen v Australian Stevedoring Industry Board; Ex parte Melbourne Stevedoring Co Pty Ltd (1953) 88 CLR 100, 120.17. Minister for Aboriginal Affairs v Peko-Wallsend Ltd (1986) 162 CLR 24, 39.18. W321/01A v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs [2002] FCA 210 (11 March 2002) [30].19. Thevendramv Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs [2000] FCA 1910 (21 December 2000) [59]. 20. Valtchev v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) [2001] FCT 776 (6 July 2001) [7]; Shenoda v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) [2003] FCT 207 (20 February 2003) [7].21. Sir Thomas Bingham, The Judge as Juror: The Judicial Determination of Factual Issues (1985) 38(1) Current Legal Problems 1, 14.22. Lopez-Reyes v Immigration and Naturalization Service, 79 F 3d 908 (9th Cir. 1996).23. Rajamanikkam v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs [1999] FCA 1411 (19 November 1999) [41].24. International Association of Refugee Law Judges, above n 12, 35.25. Valtchev v Canada (Minister for Citizenship and Immigration) [2001] FCT 776.26. Samani v Canada (Minister for Citizenship and Immigration) [1998] CanLII 8301 [4].27. Wani, re: application for judicial review [2005] CSOH 73 [24].28. Perry v The Queen (1982) 150 CLR 580, 594.29. Adam v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] EWCA Civ 265 [14].30. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), DFAT Country Information Report Iran (2013) [5.8] .31. Human Rights Watch, We Will Teach You a Lesson: Sexual Violence against Tamils by Sri Lankan Security Forces (2013) 30 ; DFAT, DFAT Country Information Report Sri Lanka (2013) [3.29] .32. IARLJ, above n 11, 39.33. El Moraghy v Ashcroft, 331 F 3d 195 [27] (1st Cir, 2003).34. Hungarian Helsinki Committee, above n 3, 11.35. Ibid.36. Guy Goodwin-Gill and Jane McAdam, The Refugee in International Law (Oxford University Press, 3rd ed, 2007) 547.37. Hungarian Helsinki Committee, above n 3, 11.38. Danish Immigration Service, Human Rights Situation for Minorities, Women and Converts, and Entry and Exit Procedures, ID Cards, Summons and Reporting, etc (2009) [7.4] .39. Amnesty International, We are ordered to crush you: Expanding repression of dissent in Iran (2012) 56 ; 1001288 [2010] RRTA 912 (22 October 2010).40. Human Rights Law Centre, Cant flee, cant stay: Australias interception and return of Sri Lankan asylum seekers (2014) 44-47 .41. DFAT, above n 31, [3.72].42. GJ and Others (post-civil war: returnees) Sri Lanka CG [2013] UKUT00319 (IAC) [356(6)].43. SZSFK v Minister for Immigration [2013] FCCA 7 [31].44. Susan Kneebone, The Refugee Review Tribunal and the assessment of credibility: an inquisitorial role? (1998) 5 Australian Journal of Administrative Law 78, 88-89. 45. Refugee Review Tribunal, Guide to refugee law (18 September 2014) .46. ABC News, Tribunals ordered to consider new country assessments when deciding on asylum claims, AM, 17 July 2013 .47. Matthew E Price, Rethinking Asylum: History, Purpose and Limits (Cambridge University Press, 2009) 92.48. Ibid.49. Gramatikov v Immigration and Naturalization Service, 128 F.3d 619 [2] (7th Cir. 1997); cited in Zeeshan Manzoor v United States Department of Justice, 254 F.3d 342 [20] (1st Cir. 2001).50. Price, above n 47.51. R (YH) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] 4 All ER 448 [24].