Project Updates - July to December 2015

The work of the Centre is based around a team of law scholars at UNSW Law with expertise in the international, comparative and domestic dimensions of refugee law and policy.  Below is a snapshot of recent and upcoming research activity in these areas of refugee law and policy.

The history of Australian refugee policy

Under this project, Dr Claire Higgins is creating and analysing a new dataset concerning refugee status determination (RSD) in Australia from 1978 to 2014. At present, comprehensive figures on asylum applications in Australia are only available from 1989 onward, meaning that a key period in the development of Australia’s RSD procedure and asylum regime is missing from scholarship on this issue. This project will combine unpublished figures on applications for asylum from 1978 to 1988, which are currently available only through a range of archival sources, with publicly available figures from 1989 onward. 

In the first instance, this RSD data will be made publicly available on the Kaldor Centre website. It will constitute a unique resource for scholars of Australian refugee policy and of RSD internationally, demonstrating the varied geographic regions from which asylum seekers have sought protection in Australia since the establishment of Australia’s formal RSD procedure in 1978. In the second stage of the project, the data will be compared with indices on political repression and human development, to indicate whether there are associated trends in the granting or refusal of protection in Australia.

In-country processing and orderly departure programs

In-country processing, sometimes known as ‘orderly departure’, enables people in refugee-like situations - but who have not yet fled their homes – to be processed within their countries of origin and then resettled abroad. This project, led by Dr Claire Higgins, examines in-country programs run by the United States, Canada and Australia over the last three decades. The project will provide a detailed study of how in-country processing works in both theory and in practice. Dr Higgins has conducted archival research and oral history interviews into the Australian and Canadian programs, with funding from the National Archives of Australia and the Australian Academy of the Humanities. The Centre will release a factsheet on in-country processing in early 2016.

Public attitudes towards refugees

The relationship between Australia’s refugee policies and Australian public opinion is an evolving and complex question. This project builds collaboration across the non-government sector and related academic disciplines to examine opinion polling, policy-making and policy outcomes. On 24 July 2015, the Kaldor Centre hosted a symposium on public attitudes to refugees, in collaboration with the Centre for Refugee Research at UNSW and the Migration Law Program at ANU. We received excellent feedback from attendees, and since then we are continuing to engage with organisations from the refugee sector, academics and journalists who are seeking to better understand public opinion on refugees. The audio for speakers’ presentations is now available on the events page or via the podcast on iTunes.

Offshore processing

Madeline Gleeson has submitted the manuscript for her book on the offshore processing arrangements in Nauru and Manus Island, due to be published by UNSW Press in March 2016.

Ms Gleeson also made a submission to the Senate Select Committee on the Recent Allegations relating to Conditions and Circumstances at the Regional Processing Centre in Nauru. The submission focused on the Australian government’s responsibilities with respect to the centre in Nauru, particularly with respect to asylum seeker children. This submission related also to the Centre’s projects on State Responsibility and Borders and Protection of Children.

Climate change, disasters and displacement

Jane McAdam has continued to publish a number of peer-reviewed articles and reports on this subject as part of her ARC Future Fellowship. She co-authored a report for the Universal Rights Group, a Geneva-based human rights think tank, on human rights, climate change and cross-border displacement, to help inform governments in the lead-up to the Paris climate change negotiations. In her role as Co-Rapporteur of the International Law Association’s Committee on International Law and Sea-Level Rise, she co-authored two reports on the impacts of sea-level rise on human rights and mobility, which will be published in 2016.

Professor McAdam was heavily involved in the preparation of the Nansen Initiative’s Global Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Displaced Persons in the context of Disasters and Climate Change, which was endorsed by 114 States in Geneva in October. At that meeting, she chaired a panel including the Costa Rican Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Ugandan Minister of State for Relief, Disaster, Preparedness and Refugees. Earlier in the year, she was involved in the drafting of ‘A Guide to Effective Practices on Protection for Persons Moving Across Borders in the context of Disasters’, for countries in Central America.

In October, Professor McAdam also attended the World Humanitarian Summit Global Consultation in Geneva, which is a process initiated by the UN Secretary-General to reshape the international humanitarian landscape for the coming decades, including better linking humanitarian work to prevention, resilience and development.

In December, Professor McAdam has been invited to be a panellist at the High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection Challenges on ‘Understanding and addressing the root causes of displacement’. This meeting brings together States, experts and NGOs working on refugees. There are three expert panels, and the focus of her panel is ‘climate change and disasters’.

During April/May 2016, Professor McAdam will be a Guest Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg (Germany) and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund (Sweden). During this time, she will be the keynote speaker at a conference on complementary protection and climate-related displacement.

Complementary protection

The Centre continues to maintain a database of all Australian and New Zealand tribunal and court decisions on complementary protection. A new bill has been introduced into the Australian Parliament designed to tighten the application of complementary protection provisions. Professor McAdam led a submission to the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs highlighting concerns with the bill.

Planned relocation and resettlement

Professor McAdam has continued to publish a number of peer-reviewed articles and reports on this subject as part of her ARC Future Fellowship, and has a number of articles under review.

Additionally, she was part of a small expert group that drafted ‘Guidance on Protecting People from Disasters and Environmental Change through Planned Relocation’, which has been presented to States. This initiative was led by UNHCR, Brookings and Georgetown University.

In May, she presented her research on planned relocations to States at an intergovernmental meeting held at Chatham House in London, as part of the Nansen Initiative consultation process. She also presented her research at the Australian Institute of International Affairs in August.

The refugee in international refugee law

Professor McAdam is currently completing the fourth edition of The Refugee in International Law together with Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill. In September, she took over as the sole editor of the International Journal of Refugee Law, the leading journal in the field.

Professor McAdam is currently completing an article on statelessness in Australia with Professor Michelle Foster from Melbourne Law School.  Professor McAdam, Professor Foster and Professor Hélène Lambert have received a three-year ARC grant to examine the concept of ‘imminence’ in international law, which will commence in mid-2016.

Professor McAdam has received seed funding (with Professor Jill Hunter, UNSW Law) for a joint research project with UNSW Psychology that examines the impact of trauma on refugee testimony and the way in which decision-makers use refugees’ evidence in assessing the credibility of their claims.

She has been invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2016 to talk on the current refugee situation in Europe.

Regional protection and cooperation

Led by Madeline Gleeson, with the assistance of Sophie Duxson, the Centre has commenced preparatory work for the planned civil society conference to be held in Indonesia in mid-2016. The conference will bring together academics and civil society to examine the relevant legal and normative frameworks governing the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia, how these frameworks are applied and the factual contexts in which they operate, and possible opportunities for the development of these frameworks. An initial literature review has been conducted on Indonesia’s engagement with relevant international law and regional cooperation frameworks, and a review of domestic legislation to the extent possible based on English language resources.