ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by considering the legal criteria for establishing refugee status. Who is a refugee? What is the essence of refugee status? The chapter argues that these questions must be answered by reference to legal and not psychological criteria. Refugees are a disparate group, with multiple forms of past experience and multiple causes of exile from their home communities. They are united only in so far as they have all undergone a legal process and have satisfied certain legal criteria in the United Kingdom. The chapter suggests that refugee status is both a forced and an externally defined status. First, a refugee is a person who has departed involuntarily from her country of origin as a result of a breakdown of relations with her State. Secondly, refugees have submitted to status determination processes and have been deemed to fulfil the refugee definition under the 1951 Refugee Convention.
