With Cambodia Resettlement Deal, Australia Tests Refugee Norms

Cambodian riot police officers stand guard in front of Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sept. 26, 2014 (AP photo by Heng Sinith).

By Matthew J. Gibney, Dec. 30, 2014, Briefing

In September, the Australian government agreed on a deal to send refugees currently housed on the Pacific Island nation of Nauru to Cambodia for permanent resettlement. The agreement is a new twist in the Australian government’s efforts to deter asylum seekersarriving by boat on its northern shores. The Pacific island nation of Nauru currently hosts some 1,233 asylum seekers transferred there by Australia under a separate, earlier agreement, and they are still awaiting determination of their refugee claims.

The Cambodian agreement is important for Australia because it provides a long-term solution for refugees on Nauru that does not jeopardize Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s pledge that asylum seekers arriving by boat will not set foot on Australian soil. But the arrangement has proven as controversial as almost every other strict Australian response to asylum seekers over the past decade and a half, under both Liberal- and Labor-led governments. NGOs, church leaders, the United Nations and even the Cambodian opposition have criticized the deal. The head of the United Nations Refugee Agency, Antonio Guterres, has urged countries like Australia not to “shift their refugee responsibilities elsewhere.” As legal challenges to the deal mount, they could have major consequences for how asylum seekers and refugees are treated and protected around the world.