Jastram, ‘Reading Climate into the Refugee Convention: Lessons from the Unfinished Business of Gender-Based Asylum’, 2025

Jastram, Kate, Reading Climate into the Refugee Convention: Lessons from the Unfinished Business of Gender-Based Asylum (October 23, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5649870 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5649870

Abstract

With increasing attention to the role of climate change and disasters in claims for international protection, it is important to reflect on the unfinished business of reading gender into the Refugee Convention. This chapter traces the incomplete evolution of international refugee law with respect to protection claims related to gender. It examines the similarities and differences between such claims and the emerging area of climate-related displacement law and draws out lessons from the ongoing struggle to see gender as central to the notion of international protection.

Part 1 summarizes the development of the law on gender-related claims, reviewing interpretive challenges on key elements of the refugee definition including persecution, the five grounds, and the connection between the two. Part 2 analyzes the emerging area of climate-related claims from an initial reluctance to see the relevance of the Refugee Convention to a growing body of jurisprudence. Part 3 argues that at this critical stage in the development of the law, three key lessons learned from gender-related claims should guide interpretation of the refugee definition going forward.