Applying the New Burden of Proof: Lessons from the Canadian Experience

As a result of recent amendments to the UK Nationality and Borders Act asylum seekers will now have to establish certain facts to a balance of probabilities. This paper discusses the impact of those changes and drawing on the Canadian jurisprudence, which has applied the balance of probabilities standard to factual issues since 1989, distinguishes between those issues that have to be established to the higher balance of probabilities threshold and those for which the lower standard of risk, “the reasonable risk of persecution” should be used.