Raimondo, ‘Beyond Protection. Gender Equality in K, L (C 646/21)’, 2024

Raimondo, Giulia, ‘Beyond Protection. Gender Equality in K, L (C 646/21)’, 5 July 2024, Verfassungsblog on matters constitutional

Whether and how gender-related violence can constitute a ground to claim and receive asylum has long been a subject of debate in refugee law. While feminist legal scholars have long sought to alleviate the gender-blindness of the original text of the Refugee Convention, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) only started taking some steps in this direction earlier this year. In WS, the Court recognised that women may be regarded as belonging to ‘a particular social group’ (PSG) in a country as a whole, leading to the recognition of their refugee status (for further analysis, see here and here). Its recent decision in K,L raised a different question. While WS asked whether women could seek protection in the EU based on their well-founded fear of being persecuted by reason of gender-based violence, K,L concerned two young women who, during their stay in the EU, had embraced European fundamental rights standards and values and for that reason faced the risk of persecution upon return.