HR PART 1 Flashcards
Why is it bad that Aust is taking tough approach to refugees/ asylum seekers?
Australia’s tough approach to people arriving by boat to claim asylum comes at a time when the need for refugee protection has never been more urgent.
UNHCR identified
UNHCR identified 691,000 refugees as being in need of resettlement in 2014 despite having access to only 86,000 global resettlement places each year.
At the end of 2012
, there were more than 45.2 million forcibly displaced people and the highest number of new arrivals in one year since 1999.
rapid escalation of the conflict in Syria resulted in?
The rapid escalation of the conflict in Syria resulted in the displacement of people at a rate of 7,000 people per day with
its hardening attitude to asylum attracted
d unwelcome attention and concern from within Australia and from international gatherings observing with alarm Australia’s increasing shift towards deterrence.
The convening of the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers offered some hope of progress on
the regional cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region that is needed to create safer pathways to protection.
Some of the Expert Panel recommendations raised hopes that Australia would see
regional cooperation as a priority but the Government was seen to embrace and act quickly to implement deterrence policies that recalled the worst aspects of the Howard Government’s Pacific Solution.
Many of us recall the destructive policy environment of more than a decade ago
the consequences for some of the world’s most vulnerable men, women and children who were denied the opportunity to seek asylum in Australia, expelled to small Pacific nations and damaged by the brutality of indefinite mandatory detention
The United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, as amended by its 1967 Protocol the Refugee Convention):
“a refugee is a person who is outside their own country and is unable or unwilling to return due to a well-founded fear of being persecuted because of their:
• race
• religion
• nationality
• membership of a particular social group or
• political opinion.
Asylum seekers or refugees and migrants have very different experiences and reasons for moving to another country, fleeing their country for their own safety.”
Australian Government has obligations under
various international treaties to ensure that their human rights are respected and protected.
These treaties include the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or PunishmeNT (CAT)
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
As a party to the Refugee Convention, Australia has agreed to
ensure that asylum seekers who meet the definition of a refugee are not sent back to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. ( non-refoulement.)
Australia also has obligations not to return people who
face a real risk of violation of certain human rights under the ICCPR, the CAT and the CRC, and not to send people to third countries where they would face a real risk of violation of their human rights under these instruments. These obligations also apply to people who have not been found to be refugees.
the Australian Human Rights Commission’s, Asylum seekers, refugees and human rights: Snapshot report (2013) (ASRHRSR) revealed,
there is “a significant gap between Australia’s human rights obligations under international law and the current treatment of asylum seekers and refugees.”
underlying issues in creating impediments for such individuals who request protection
In such tendencies, increased border controls, visa regimes, and substandard conditions of detention centers have posed as underlying issues in creating impediments for such individuals who request protection.
