J. McAdam, 'Defending the Refugee Convention’, The Saturday Paper, 19 November 2016    

M. Gleeson,'FactCheck Q&A: how much was spent on the Cambodia refugee deal and how many were settled?' The Conversation, 21 November 2016  

E. Ferris, ‘After Trump’s election we need to get creative on the refugee crisis’, Refugees Deeply, 17 November 2016  

Interview: Francois Crepeau, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Lateline, 19 November 2016

I. Macphee, ‘Peter Dutton has it wrong on Malcolm Fraser’, John Menadue Pearls and Irritations blog, 21 November 2016

V. Macchi, ‘Can Trump ban refugees to the US?’ Voice of America, 17 November 2016

M. Yusuf and O. Anyadike, ‘Reprieve but no solution for Kenya’s Dadaab refugees’, ReliefWeb, 16 November 2016

L. Bader, ‘Kenya delays Dadaab closure deadline: Limiting extension to six months prolongs confusion, suffering’, Human Rights Watch, 16 November 2016

We are pleased to announce a new Kaldor Centre Policy Brief, In search of solutions: The 2016 refugee summits. Written by Professor Elizabeth Ferris of Georgetown University, who was closely involved with the UN Summit on Refugees and Migrants in September, the brief offers insight into the historic international meetings of 2016, and their implications for the future of refugee protection.

Professor Jane McAdam and Madeline Gleeson (Kaldor Centre) together with Professor Ben Saul (University of Sydney) and Professor Michelle Foster (University of Melbourne) wrote a submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee on the Migration Legislation Amendment (Regional Processing Cohort) Bill 2016.

The Kaldor Centre has a new factsheet on the Australia-US resettlement arrangement, available here. This factsheet will continue to be updated as further details of the arrangement become available.

Last week the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, François Crépeau, completed an official mission to Australia and issued preliminary observations and recommendations on Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. Among other things, Prof Crépeau called on Australia to end mandatory detention, and said that Australia is responsible for ‘the damage inflicted’ on those refugees on Nauru and Manus Island, and that ‘the geographic and psychological confinement’ of offshore processing ‘constitutes cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under international human rights law standards’.
 
The end of mission statement can be read here and the press release here.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection has released a statement in response, stating that it ‘does not accept some of the preliminary observations made… on Australia’s compliance with international obligations and human rights principles’. The statement can be read here.

US officials are said to have arrived on Manus Island to begin processing refugees for resettlement, under the deal Australia announced the previous week. Meanwhile the ABC has interviewed refugees living in transit in Indonesia about the deal, and the Secretary of the Department of Immigration, Mike Pezzullo, has said that the deal is ‘not connected’ to the government’s proposed lifetime travel ban on those asylum seekers and refugees who sought to reach Australia since July 2013.

For information about the resettlement deal, see the Kaldor Centre factsheet.

There are reports that the Australian government may be in talks with Malaysia about a possible resettlement deal , although Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has played down the idea. Mr Turnbull met with Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak on the sidelines of the APEC Leader’s Summit in Lima. Meanwhile, The Australian newspaper has reported an increase in asylum claims from Malaysians travelling to Australia on tourist visas.

The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, has stirred controversy by making comments linking gang violence in migrant communities to the immigration policies of Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser’s government in the 1970s.

There are reports that Vietnamese asylum seekers who attempted to reach Australia and were returned directly to Vietnam by Australian authorities now face long jail sentences.

An asylum seeker from Myanmar living in Australia on a bridging visa has set himself alight in a Melbourne bank, due to apparent financial and psychological stress.

The Refugee Council of Australia has released a new report about the impact of Australia’s policies on refugee families. In other news the Administrative Appeals Tribunal has heard arguments around an FOI request for information about asylum seekers on Nauru.

Kenya has announced that the closure of the Dadaab refugee camp will be delayed by six months, in a move welcomed by UNHCR.

UNHCR is ‘deeply concerned’ about the safety and well-being of civilians in the northern part of Rakhine state, Myanmar, and has urged the government of Myanmar to ensure the protection and dignity of all civilians on its territory in accordance with the rule of law and its international obligations. UNHCR has appealed for calm and for humanitarian actors to be granted access to the area, to assess and meet the needs of thousands of people who have reportedly been displaced from their homes by the ongoing security operation. UNHCR has also appealed to the government of Bangladesh to keep its border with Myanmar open and allow safe passage to any civilians from Myanmar fleeing violence.

Asylum seekers in Hong Kong are expected to launch a protest on Monday night, to call for more assistance and better protection of refugee children’s rights. Asylum seekers are not allowed to work in the city, and must rely on social welfare payments until their claims have been processed, which can take several years. The Refugee Union has called on Hong Kong’s Social Welfare Department to provide better rent and food assistance, and provide a separate monthly coupon for nappies.

In a short video broadcast by Al Jazeera, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has lashed out at the ‘hypocrisy’ of the West for closing state borders to refugees, saying he would welcome them to his country and accept them until it was ‘filled to the brim’.

Four shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea left some 340 people dead or missing in less than three days last week, in what was already the worst year on record for migrant deaths at sea.

EU interior ministers are still far from reaching a compromise on how to implement a deal struck in September last year to relocate 160,000 asylum-seekers from Italy and Greece, and share responsibility more equitably between EU states. Eastern EU member states have rejected a quota system, and other initiatives have stalled.

Tensions are high on the Greek island of Chios, after the Souda refugee camp was attacked with Molotov cocktail bombs and rocks, and several tents were destroyed in two nights of incidents. The attackers are believed to belong to a far-right extremist group. A UNHCR spokesperson has said families – including pregnant women and children – are so scared that they prefer not to return to the camp, although they don't have any other accommodation. A video of the aftermath of the attack is available here.

The UK Home Office has published its new guidelines which introduce eligibility criteria for refugee children from Calais who apply for relocation under the Dubs Amendment. These guidelines limit the scope of the Dubs Amendment, under which the UK government vowed to grant protection to unaccompanied refugee children located in other European countries.

On 28 October 2016, the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Public Security issued a new instruction to the immigration authorities allowing stateless children born in Norway to acquire Norwegian citizenship. Previously, stateless children born in Norway “without lawful residence” had not been able to acquire Norwegian citizenship.

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights has raised concerns about asylum seekers’ access to asylum procedures at the Brest-Terespol border crossing between Poland and Belarus. In a new report based on a recent field visit, the organisation says Polish Border Guards seem to ignore intentions to apply for international protection expressed by foreign nationals at the border, and deny access to Polish territory in violation of the principle of non-refoulement.

The European Court of Human Rights has given judgment in the case of El Ghatet v. Switzerland, concerning the refusal of Swiss authorities to permit the family reunification of an Egyptian son with his father, who has Egyptian and Swiss nationality. The Swiss Federal Supreme Court had ruled that the applicant’s son had closer ties to Egypt, where he had been cared for by his mother and grandmother, and that the father should have applied for family reunification immediately after arriving in Switzerland. The father and son submitted an application to the ECtHR complaining that the Swiss authorities’ refusal of family reunification violated their right to respect for family life as provided in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Based on the facts of the case, and its conclusion that the child’s best interests were not given sufficiently regard in the balancing of competing interests, the Court found a violation of Article 8.

In Iraq, UNHCR and its partners have been intensifying the provision of emergency assistance to tens of thousands of people displaced by conflict in the city of Mosul. Around 60,000 people are reported to have fled their homes since the start of the Mosul offensive on October 17, with a marked increase in the number of people fleeing after fighting recently intensified in the more densely-populated urban areas of Mosul. Close to half of all displaced people are children, with women, girls and female headed households, some of whom are survivors of abuse, accounting for much of the rest. UNHCR currently has six camps open, hosting well over 14,000 people and with a capacity for 54,600. Three more are under construction and one is in planning. 

UNHCR has published an updated position paper on returns to Iraq. UNHCR urges States to refrain from forcibly returning any Iraqis who originate from areas of Iraq that are affected by military action, remain fragile and insecure after having been retaken from ISIS, or remain under control of ISIS.

Donations of $2 or more are tax deductible in Australia. Your support will help us continue this weekly roundup, and our broader efforts to inform public debate through factsheets, commentary and events. It also enables us to generate the evidence-based, long-term thinking that can improve public policy and the search for solutions to the world's displaced.