On January 29, 2014, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (the Court) decided I.A. v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, unanimously dismissing the appeal against an immigration judge’s refusal to grant asylum to I.A., despite the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) having granted him refugee status. The Court held that the national decision maker is required to pay “close attention to the UNHCR decision” and give “considerable pause before arriving at a different conclusion,” such that “[a] claimant for asylum who has been accorded refugee status by UNHCR starts in a significantly better position than one who does not have that status.” However, this “does not shift the burden of proof,” and thus the immigration judge had been entitled to reject the appeal in this case because, according to the press release, there was “external evidence which called into question the credibility of IA’s account.”