Where to from here? Report from the Expert Roundtable on regional cooperation and refugee protection in the Asia-Pacific

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At a time of increasingly polarised debate globally, Australia faces many difficult questions about refugee protection. What is the future for offshore processing? Are boat turn-backs safe and legal? Is regional cooperation a realistic policy goal? Are there alternative ways to provide safe pathways to protection for those who need it?

On 12–13 September 2016, the Kaldor Centre convened a two-day Expert Roundtable on regional cooperation and refugee protection in the Asia-Pacific, at UNSW. Participants included a range of academics, legal practitioners, civil society representatives and other subject-matter experts, as well as representatives from the UNHCR Regional Representations in Canberra and Bangkok.

Find out what the experts had to say in the report of the Expert Roundtable, Where To From Here?, available below.

Report on the Expert Roundtable on regional cooperation on refugee protection in the Asia-Pacific

Media release

Offshore processing in Nauru and Papua New Guinea

Brief: third-country resettlement

Media coverage

Madeline Gleeson, 'Asylum seekers will welcome another New Year still in limbo', Sydney Morning Herald, 13 December 2016

Key resources

Bilateral agreements: Memoranda of Understanding between Australia and Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Cambodia
Factsheet: Australia–United States Resettlement Arrangement
Factsheet: The Cambodia Agreement
Factsheet: Offshore processing: Australia’s responsibility for asylum seekers and refugees in Nauru and Papua New Guinea
Factsheet: Offshore processing: Refugee status determination for asylum seekers in Nauru
Factsheet: Offshore processing: Refugee status determination for asylum seekers on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea
Facthseet: Offshore processing: Australia's obligations with respect to asylum seeker children who may be sent to Nauru
In Focus Brief: Resettlement of refugees from Nauru to Cambodia
Kaldor Centre's Transfer Tracker

Protection at Sea

Key resources

Kaldor Centre Policy Brief: Violeta Moreno-Lax, 'The Interdiction of Asylum Seekers at Sea: Law and (mal)practice in Europe and Australia', May 2017.
Factsheet: Turning back boats
Factsheet: Maritime interception and screening of asylum seekers at sea

Protection in the Asia-Pacific Region

Key resources

Penelope Mathew and Tristan Harley, Refugees, Regionalism and Responsibility (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016)
Bob Douglas, Claire Higgins, Arja Keski-Nummi, Jane McAdam and Travers McLeod, Beyond the Boats: Building an Asylum and Refugee Policy for the Long Term (Report of High-Level Roundtable, 2014)

Safe Pathways to Protection

Key resources

Factsheet: In-country processing and other protected entry procedures
Australian Human Rights Commission, Pathways to Protection: A human rights-based response to the flight of asylum seekers by sea (2016)

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Where to from here? Report from the Expert Roundtable on regional cooperation and refugee protection in the Asia-Pacific

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