Protection of Refugees and Displaced Persons in the Asia Pacific Region

Abstract

The thirteen chapters collected in this volume engage with the experience and varying policies of states in the Asia Pacific region regarding refugees, asylum seekers, displaced persons, and ‘environmental refugees’. The stated aim of the editors is that the contributors to the volume should ‘take stock of regional and global developments and explore the historical and political environment for the reception of protection norms’ in the region. Two principal facts colour the background to the studies. First, according to UNHCR figures (2011), the Asia Pacific region hosted the highest number of refugees (3,793,900) of any region in the world. The second is that the number of parties to the CSR51 and the CSRP67 in the region is low. In Southeast Asia, only Cambodia and the Philippines are parties; the main recipient and transit countries of refugees and asylum seekers in that sub-region, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, are non-parties. A third fact is recognised in many of the studies. Australia, as the largest developed country in the region, is the preferred destination of many asylum seekers. Australia is a party to the CSR51 and the CSRP67. However, protected through the absence of land borders with any of its neighbours, it has shown increasing reluctance to accept asylum seekers arriving by boat and otherwise than through its established refugee resettlement and immigration programmes. Few asylum seekers arrive in Australia by boat directly from countries where they have endured persecution; most come by way of ‘secondary movements’ from countries where they have been accorded temporary protection. However, seeing no permanent future in those countries, and frustrated by the slowness of resettlement programmes, they have taken to boats organised by paid people smugglers. Harsh measures against unauthorised boat arrivals have been taken by successive Australian governments. They enjoy wide popular support in Australia. Those measures include removing asylum seekers for processing in other countries (Papua New Guinea and Nauru) and the denial of resettlement in Australia.