Tag Archives: Australia
19 July 2013
Australia and Papua New Guinea have signed an agreement that allows Australia to send all asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat to a refugee processing centre in its developing neighbour Papua New Guinea.
The policy was immediately condemned by refugee and human rights advocates as disregarding legal and moral obligations towards asylum seekers, the New York Times reports. The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, while admitting the move was ‘very hard line’, insisted it met Australia’s obligations under the UN Refugee Convention. Under the arrangement, those who are found to be genuine refugees would be resettled in Papua New Guinea or in another state, while forfeiting any right to asylum in Australia.
Source: The New York Times | Australia Adopts Tough Measures to Curb Asylum Seekers
Source: AP | Australia to sent refugees to Papua New Guinea
27 May 2013
Symposium on the Law of the Sea and the Law of Responsibility, cross-posted on Opinio Juris
One of the most successful environmental campaigns was captured by the slogan of ‘Save the Whales’. It was apparently when the Australian Prime Minister’s daughter returned home from school sporting a Save the Whales badge that the initial impetus was provided for Australia to shift from pro-whaling nation to anti-whaling. Over the decades, we have seen a fundamental change in the legal regulation of whaling: from minimal regulation and maximum exploitation to a zero-catch quota (colloquially known as the moratorium) on commercial whaling under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW). There has been resistance to this moratorium – from those states that never agreed to the imposition of a moratorium and those states that seem to thwart the moratorium by conducting commercial whaling under the guise of legally permissible scientific whaling, as Australia asserts Japan is doing. If we are to maintain legal standards in the conduct of whaling then how can states be held responsible? (more…)
17 May 2013
On 16 May 2013, legislation passed the Australian Senate to excise the entire Australian mainland from the migration zone. All asylum seekers who arrive anywhere in Australia by boat are now eligible to be sent to Nauru or Papua New Guinea for ‘regional processing’.
With the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees issuing scratching reports on the processing centers on Nauru and Papua New Guinea, there was a failed attempt by the Greens, an opposition party in the Australian Parliament, to strike down the legislation.
The Australian Government, which is dealing with an increasing number of boats arrivals, says the legislation is a deterrence measure. The idea was one of 25 recommendations that was put forward by an expert panel on asylum seekers and introduced to the Parliament by the Government last year.
Source: ABC News | Parliament excises mainland from migration zone
23 November 2012
In a report published on 23 November 2012, Amnesty International condemns Australia’s newly reinstated policy of offshore processing of asylum seekers in Nauru. During a three-day inspection of the facility, it found a toxic mix of uncertainty, unlawful detention and inhumane conditions creating an increasingly volatile situation on Nauru, amounting to breaches of international human rights law by both the Australian and Nauruan government. According to Amnesty, the dire circumstances that the asylum seekers are facing further highlights why a developed country with a functioning refugee processing system should never send asylum seekers to a country without existing capacity to care for, process and protect them.
Source: Amnesty International | Nauru Camp A Human Rights Catastrophe With No End In Sight
Source: BBC | Australia asylum camp in Nauru 'cruel and degrading'
14 August 2012
Asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat will be sent to the Pacific island of Nauru or to Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island for processing, the prime minister Julia Gillard announced on 13 August. The proposal to reopen the detention centres is part of a new plan to prevent overcrowded boats sinking en route and to deter refugees from reaching Australia. The proposal is the result of recommendations of an expert panel convened six weeks ago to find a political solution.
The announcement drew immediate condemnation from human rights groups, who say that ‘sending asylum seekers to places like … Nauru and Papua New Guinea is unacceptable and a complete outsourcing of Australia’s human rights obligations’. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it would study the proposal in more detail.
Source: International Herald Tribune | Premier of Australia Backs Plan on Refugees
Source: BBC | Australia asylum: MPs debate Nauru and PNG centres
Source: The Guardian | Australia to deport boat asylum seekers to Pacific islands