Regional Focus: Australia

The Australian government recently announced that it would transfer asylum-seekers arriving by boat to Papua New Guinea (PNG) for processing.  Those determined to be refugees would also be resettled in PNG.  For more details, refer to the text of the "Regional Resettlement Arrangement between Australia and Papua New Guinea."

Here is a sampling of responses to the "PNG Solution":

APRRN Statement on Recent Policy Announcements in Australia (APRRN, Aug. 2013) [text]

Australia Passes the Parcel and Closes the Door to Desperate Boat Arrivals (Amnesty International, July 2013) [text]
- See also related urgent action appeal.

Australia's Increasingly Restrictive Policies Block Asylum Seekers from Entry (IntLawGrrls, July 2013) [text]

Australian Hypocrisy Undermines Regional Efforts to Protect Refugees (Refugee Council of Australia, July 2013) [text]

The PNG Solution: The Shadow of a Looming Election Falls on Desperate Asylum-seekers (The Economist, July 2013) [text]

Regional Resettlement Arrangement Raises Human Rights Questions (Australian Human Rights Commission, July 2013) [text]

UNHCR Troubled by New Australia-PNG Asylum Agreement (UNHCR, July 2013) [text]

Additional commentary can be found on the web sites of The Conversation and Inside Story.

Other recent publications:

Boat Arrivals in Australia since 1976 (Parliamentary Library, updated July 2013) [text]

Implications for Offshore Processing in Australia: The Case of Plaintiff M70/2011, Legal Studies Research Paper No. 13/53 (Sydney Law School, July 2013) [text via SSRN]

Inaugural Vulnerability Report: Inside the Process of Seeking Asylum in Australia (Australian Red Cross, June 2013) [text]

Problems Persist at Manus Island Processing Centre: UNHCR Australia Report (UNHCR, July 2013) [text]

Protection in Humanitarian Action Framework for the Australian Aid Program 2013 (Australian Agency for International Development, July 2013) [text via ReliefWeb]

"A Tale of Two Unsuccessful Asylum Seekers," Eureka Street, vol. 23, no. 12 (June 2013) [full-text]

Tagged Publications.