scholarly journals Prospects for Australian-Led Regional Cooperation On Asylum Seeker and Refugee Issues

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Sian Troath
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Australian Government ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Demand ◽  
Refugee Issues

The nomination of former Refugee High Commissioner Antonio Guterres for Secretary-General, the ongoing and intensifying condemnations of Australia’s offshore detention centres on human rights grounds, and the ruling of the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court regarding detention centres on Manus Island, indicate that the Australian government needs a new policy on asylum-seekers. The domestic political demand for a deterrence-based, “no advantage”, tough on borders approach means that the only way to achieve this would be through regional cooperation, which would be impossible without the cooperation of Indonesia. Analysing why there is such strong involvement of domestic politics on this issue, even to the detriment of the bilateral relationship with Indonesia, is vital to understanding how to improve the relationship and foster regional cooperation on asylum seekers. While reaching a broad cooperative agreement on asylum seekers in general would be far too difficult, the Rohingya refugee crisis presents a specific case on which regional cooperation could be built. If successful, this would serve as a building-block for deeper and more sustained regional cooperation on asylum seekers

scholarly journals Hush-hushing the whole matter: The UNHCR, Australia, and West Papuan Refugees

Refuge ◽  
2006 ◽  
pp. 69-80
Author(s):  
Klaus Neumann
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Historical Case Study ◽  
Australian Government ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Western Half ◽  
Eastern Half

Between 1962 and 1973, thousands of refugees crossed from the Indonesian-controlled western half of the island of New Guinea into the Australian-controlled eastern half. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) refrained from becoming involved in the issue, and from publicly criticizing the Australian government over its response to West Papuan asylum seekers. In return, the Australian government committed itself to keeping the High Commissioner informed about developments in New Guinea on the understanding that it would provide information on a strictly confidential basis. The article explores the High Commissioner’s possible motives for effectively condoning Australia’s refugee policies in Papua and New Guinea. It demonstrates the relevance of this historical case study for our understanding of current Australian policies and for evaluating the relationship between the UNHCR and governments.

scholarly journals “Disturbing Practices”: Dehumanizing Asylum Seekers in the Refugee “Crisis” in Australia, 2001–2002

Refuge ◽  
2003 ◽  
pp. 25-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Leach
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Parental Responsibility ◽  
Australian Government ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
Boat People ◽  
Post September 11 ◽  
The Way

Throughout late 2001 and 2002, the Australian Government, seeking re-election, campaigned on a tough line against so-called “illegal” immigrants. Represented as “queue jumpers,” “boat people,” and “illegals,” most of these asylum seekers came from Middle Eastern countries, and, in the main, from Afghanistan and Iraq. This paper explores the way particular representations of cultural difference were entwined in media and government attacks upon asylum seekers. In particular, it analyzes the way key government figures articulated a negative understanding of asylum seekers’ family units – representing these as “foreign” or “other” to contemporary Australian standards of decency and parental responsibility. This representational regime also drew upon post-September 11 representations of Middle Eastern people, and was employed to call into question the validity of asylum-seekers’ claims for refugee status. Manufactured primarily through the now notorious “children overboard” incident, these images became a central motif of the 2001 election campaign. This paper concludes by examining the way these representations of refugees as “undeserving” were paralleled by new Temporary Protection Visa regulations in Australia.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Adam Teller
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Ethical Challenge ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Jewish Refugees ◽  
History Of ◽  
Forced Migrants ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Refugee Issues

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the refugee crisis that occurred in the mid-seventeenth century, when a huge wave of Jewish refugees and forced migrants from eastern Europe spread across the Jewish communities of Europe and Asia. Destitute, often traumatized by their experiences, and lacking any means of support, these refugees posed a huge social, economic, and ethical challenge to the Jewish world of their day. Communities across that world, touched by the crisis, answered this challenge in unprecedented ways and, both individually and jointly, began to organize relief for the Polish–Lithuanian Jews wherever they now found themselves. This book examines this refugee crisis in detail. At its heart are three major questions. The first asks how Jewish society reacted to the persecution and violence suffered by the Jews of Poland–Lithuania. The second question asks about the character of the relationship between the various Jewish communities that cooperated to help the refugees. The third question deals with how the nature of the refugee crisis in the seventeenth century may have something to contribute to the ways in which people understand the history of refugee issues in general.

No War Pact

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-116
Author(s):  
Pallavi Raghavan
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
World Views ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Jawaharlal Nehru ◽  
The Relationship

The No War Pact correspondence between Jawaharlal Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan is interesting for several reasons: its timing, the personalities, the possibilities it seemed to offer for the relationship ship, and the glimpses it offered into the world views of India and Pakistan during the 1950s. The Evacuee Property Conferences, as well as the refugee crisis in Bengal formed the immediate context in which Liaquat Ali Khan and Nehru opened negotiations on a possible No War Pact. In many ways, moreover, the correspondence also shows how deeply connected the shaping of foreign policy was with domestic politics—India’s and Pakistan’s international relations were shaped out of the domestic concerns of both nation. One reason that the correspondence was taking place at all was that it could offer the possibility of some movement on the questions of water and evacuee property. The correspondence offered an opportunity for India and Pakistan to clarify their positions internationally as mutually exclusive entities: at the same time, it was also for progress in leading to more accommodative outcomes for talks around the agenda of separation. This chapter shows that the business of going about disentangling oneself from the other did not in fact necessarily mandate international stances that had to be hostile to one another: they could also be built upon an attempt at dialogue.

scholarly journals Mapping North-South Relations: The Case of Australia’s Regional Refugee Arrangements

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 145
Author(s):  
Dimas Fauzi ◽  
Yusnia Kurniasih
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
International Law ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Refugee Resettlement ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
Financial Costs ◽  
Settlement Agreements ◽  
Refugee Issues ◽  
Positive Results

In recent years, Australia has created some regional refugee arrangements with their neighbouring countries. Under the agreements with countries such as Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and the most recent, Cambodia, Australia is committed to providing financial aid to run the supporting facilities and protect the asylum seekers who are relocated from their territory. These agreements then become questionable as the partner countries are developing countries which are relatively unstable in domestic politics and are not prosperous enough to bear the non-financial costs of refugee protection, such as integration and accountability issues. In this case, relations between Australia and their partner countries could be considered as an example of relations between the developed (north) and the developing countries (south). Thus, a question appears to be prominent: what do Australia refugee settlement agreements tell us about the relations between the (developed) north and the (developing) south? By employing structuralism model in international politics, we propose an argument that Australia’s refugee resettlement agreement can be understood as a form of responsibility sharing on refugee issue between the concerning countries in the region. The arrangements have not only produced positive results but also negative ones, such as conflicts. Additionally, this research will also take into account the existence of international law(s) governing refugee issues as the basis to analyse the refugee protection, mainly in Australia’s resettlement partner countries.

Towards an asean Model of ‘Responsibility-Sharing’ for Refugees and Asylum-Seekers

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-68
Author(s):  
Kate McMillan ◽  
Sriprapha Petcharamesree
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Andaman Sea ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Sharing Responsibility ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers ◽  
Refugee Issues

Abstract The Andaman Sea crisis of 2015 focused global attention on asean’s response to mass refugee flows and generated calls for greater regional cooperation to protect the rights and safety of forced migrants. Such calls draw from the concept of ‘responsibility-sharing’; a concept that has long underpinned the international refugee regime. Scholars have responded to this challenge by identifying a range of ways in which asean countries might benefit from sharing responsibility for the refugees and asylum-seekers in their region. Based on interviews with 40 key asean-based actors working on migration and refugee issues across the governmental and non-governmental sectors, this article seeks to understand how the concept of responsibility-sharing for refugee protection is understood in four Southeast Asian countries: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. While it finds common agreement among the interviewees that the Andaman Sea crisis was a humanitarian disaster and that existing approaches to refugee issues in the region are ineffective, it also finds little to suggest that a regional approach to refugee issues is likely to develop in the short-to-medium term. On the other hand, interviewees identified a wide range of mechanisms through which bilateral, multilateral and global initiatives might assist the region to deal with refugee and asylum issues. Linking refugee issues with other issues that concern asean Member States and incremental progress towards embedding regional human rights norms via asean human rights institutions are identified as the most fruitful pathways towards regional cooperation to protect refugee rights and safety.

The United States and the Iranian Nuclear Programme

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Hurst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
The Relationship

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.

Actor Relations in Interregional Cooperation Policy Dynamics Case Study: The Banjar Bakula Metropolitan Area Development Program in South Kalimantan Province

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Taufik Abrain
Keyword(s):  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Development Program ◽  
Policy Dynamics ◽  
Interregional Cooperation ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Area Development ◽  
Cooperation Policy

Several studies have shown that the success of interregional cooperation may be influenced by coordination, commitment, participation, variance of cooperation, structure, format of cooperation, and political will. Nevertheless, these factors do not stand alone since actor relations as a determining aspect is capable of driving those factors effectively. This article aims to examine the aspect of actor relations as a contributing factor that determines successful cooperation among regions. This is a qualitative research with the policy of inter-regional cooperation of the Banjarbakula Program, South Kalimantan Province from February 2017 to February 2018, set as its object of study. The result of this study states that the success of inter-regional cooperation is influenced by the relationship of actors in development factors as suggested by previous experts. The actors involved in the inter-regional cooperation examined in this case had become triggers of coordination, commitment, and participation toward success and failure, as well as the effectiveness of regional cooperation policy. Structural obstacles, ego-centric character, minimum budget availability, and non-visionary planning could be overcome as long as actor relations were properly managed.

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