Australia violated rights of asylum seekers on Nauru, UN watchdog rules
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United Nations human rights committee says decision should serve as warning to other nations considering outsourcing asylum processing. Australia violated the rights of asylum seekers arbitrarily detained on the island of Nauru, a UN watchdog has ruled, in a warning to other countries intent on outsourcing asylum processing.
The UN human rights committee published decisions in two cases involving 25 refugees and asylum seekers who endured years of arbitrary detention in the island nation. “A state party cannot escape its human rights responsibility when outsourcing asylum processing to another state,” said a committee member, Mahjoub El Haiba.
Under a hardline policy introduced more than a decade ago, Australia has sent thousands of people trying to reach the country by boat to detention centres on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island and the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru, which lies further to the north-west.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email. Victims in both cases filed complaints to the UN committee of 18 independent experts, charging that Australia had violated their rights under an international covenant, in particular regarding arbitrary detention.
Australia rejected the allegations, insisting that abuses that occurred in Nauru did not fall within its jurisdiction. But the UN committee highlighted that Australia had arranged for the establishment of Nauru’s regional processing centre and contributed to its operation and management.
