1951년 난민지위협약상 박해사유에 대한 고찰

Since 1992 when Korea acceded to both the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol thereof, the definition of 'refugee' as stipulated in the two binding instruments has been applied in Korea through the incorporation of the definition into its Immigration Control Act. Whereas there appear increasing numbers of refugee status applicants and related case law (including several judgments of the Supreme Court last year), there has been little detailed research on the very basic concept of 'refugee' itself. In this context, this study examines one of the core elements of the refugee concept, that is 'the reasons for persecution', which can be an important criterion for distinguishing 'refugees' from 'economic migrants'. The 'reasons' are expressly enumerated in the Article 1 of the 1951 Convention: 'race', 'religion', 'nationality', 'membership of a particular social group' and 'political opinion'. This research basically deals with all of them in order, but the ground of 'membership of a particular social group' is worthy of more attention than others because it may complement the outdated 1951 definition by way of adoption of the new developments of international human rights law since more than fifty years ago. After the respective analyses of the five reasons, this article discusses some points of attention in terms of interpreting the element of the refugee concept. Among them, the existence of not only 'actual' reasons but also 'imputed' reasons may well be emphasised. Although this research focuses on just one of elements of the refugee concept, in actual cases of refugee status determination all the other elements should also be considered together properly in a 'balanced, integrated and holistic' way, naturally based on the right understanding of the respective elements of the refugee definition.