Focus: Australia-Malaysia Refugee Agreement

Here is a sampling of some of the reactions to and analyses of the recent announcement by the Australian government of a bilateral agreement with Malaysia. If/when finalized, Australia would transfer the next 800 asylum seekers who arrive on its shores by boat to Malaysia for RSD processing, in exchange for resettling 4000 recognized refugees.

• Australia-Malaysia Agreement Sends Asylum-seekers to UNHCR RSD (RSDWatch, May 2011) [text]
• Australia-Malaysia Asylum Seeker Swap Good for Refugee Rights: UNHCR (ABC Online, May 2011) [text]
• Australia's Asylum-seekers: Eyeing a Malaise Solution (The Economist's Banyan Blog, May 2011) [text]
• Concerns over the Proposed Australia-Malaysia Refugee Transfer Arrangement (APRRN, May 2011) [text]
• In Praise of Gillard's Malaysia Solution (Club Troppo, May 2011) [text]
• Refugees: Now We have the Malaysian Solution, But What’s the Problem? (The Conversation, May 2011) [text]
• Regional Cooperation and the Malaysian Solution (Inside Story, May 2011) [text]
• Regional Processing or Trading Refugees? (New Mandala, May 2011) [text]
• Trading Refugees (Inside Story, May 2011) [text]

More generally, here are several new items that discuss Australia's policy toward asylum-seekers:

Boat Arrivals in Australia since 1976 (Parliamentary Library, updated Feb. 2011) [text]

A New Approach: Breaking Australia’s Stalemate on Refugees and Asylum Seekers (Centre for Policy Development, forthcoming) [info]

Plaintiff M61/2010E v Commonwealth; Plaintiff M69 v Commonwealth (Asylum & Refugee Law Project, April 2011) [text]
- References High Court decision re. the legality of offshore refugee processing and changes to RSD by the Australian government.

For the larger context, here are a few earlier studies that discuss regional cooperation/protection frameworks in Asia:

Developing an Asia-Pacific Protection Framework (Refugee Council of Australia, March 2011) [text]

"A New Comprehensive Plan of Action: Addressing the Refugee Protection Gap in Southeast Asia through Local and Regional Integration," Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration, vol. 1, no. 1 (Feb. 2011) [text]

Possibilities for an Asia Pacific Regional Protection Framework, Presentation to 3rd Asia Pacific Consultation on Refugee Rights (La Trobe, Nov. 2010) [access]

Refugee Protection in ASEAN: National Failures, Regional Responsibilities (People's Empowerment Foundation, Nov. 2010) [text via FMO]

Regional Approaches to Refugee Protection, Presentation to 3rd Asia Pacific Consultation on Refugee Rights (UNHCR, Nov. 2010) [access]

[Image credit: Boat Arrivals in Australia since 1976]

Tagged Publications.