The Australian government denies responsibility for asylum seekers detained in Nauru, following two decisions from the UN Human Rights Committee.

The UNHRC recently published its decisions on two cases involving refugees who complained about their treatment at Nauru’s regional processing facility.

The committee stated that Australia remained responsible for the health and welfare of refugees and asylum seekers detained in Nauru.

• READ MORE: Other asylum seeker reports

“A state party cannot escape its human rights responsibility when outsourcing asylum processing to another state,” committee member Mahjoub El Haiba said.

After the decisions were released, a spokesperson for the Australian Home Affairs Department said “it has been the Australian government’s consistent position that Australia does not exercise effective control over regional processing centres”.

“Transferees who are outside of Australia’s territory or its effective control do not engage Australia’s international obligations.

“Nauru as a sovereign state continues to exercise jurisdiction over the regional processing arrangements (and individuals subject to those arrangements) within their territory, to be managed and administered in accordance with their domestic law and international human rights obligations.”

Australia rejected allegations
Canberra opposed the allegations put to the committee, saying there was no prima facie substantiation that the alleged violations in Nauru had occurred within Australia’s jurisdiction.

The committee disagreed.

“It was established that Australia had significant control and influence over the regional processing facility in Nauru, and thus, we consider that the asylum seekers in those cases were within the state party’s jurisdiction under the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights),” El Haiba said.

“Offshore detention facilities are not human-rights free zones for the state party, which remains bound by the provisions of the Covenant.”

Refugee Action Coalition spokesperson Ian Rintoul said this was one of many decisions from the committee that Australia had ignored, and the UN committee lacked the authority to enforce its findings.

Detainees from both cases claimed Australia had violated its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), particularly Article 9 regarding arbitrary detention.

The first case involved 24 unaccompanied minors intercepted at sea, who were detained on Christmas Island before being sent to Nauru in 2014.

High temperatures and humidity
On Nauru they faced high temperatures and humidity, a lack of water and sanitation and inadequate healthcare.

Despite all but one being granted refugee status that year, they remained detained on the island.

In the second case an Iranian asylum seeker and her extended family arrived by boat on Christmas Island without valid visas.

Although she was recognised as a refugee by the authorities in Nauru in 2017 she was transferred to mainland Australia for medical reasons but remains detained.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Refugee advocates and academics are weighing in on Australia’s latest move on the Pacific geopolitical chessboard.

Canberra is ploughing A$100 million over the next five years into Nauru, a remote 21 sq km atoll with a population of just over 12,000.

It is also the location of controversial offshore detention facilities, central to Australia’s “stop the boats” immigration policy.

• READ MORE: Other Australian offshore detention policy reports

Political commentators see the Nauru-Australia Treaty signed this week by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Nauru’s President David Adeang as a move to limit China’s influence in the region.

Refugee advocates claim it is effectively a bribe to ensure Australia can keep dumping its refugees on Nauru, where much of the terrain is an industrial wasteland following decades of phosphate mining.

The Refugee Action Coalition told RNZ Pacific that there were currently between 95 and  100 detainees at the facility, the bulk of whom are from China and Bangladesh.

The deal was said to have been struck after months of secretive bilateral talks, on the back of lucrative counter offers from China.

The treaty ensures that Australia retains a veto right over a range of pacts that Nauru could enter into with other countries.

In a written statement, Albanese described the agreement as a win-win situation.

“The Nauru-Australia treaty will strengthen Nauru’s long-term stability and economic resilience. This treaty is an agreement that meets the need of both countries and serves our shared interest in a peaceful, secure and prosperous region,” he said.

‘Motivated by strategic concerns’ – expert
However, a geopolitics expert says Australia’s motivations are purely selfish.

Australian National University research fellow Dr Benjamin Herscovitch said the detention centre had bipartisan support and was a crucial part of Australia’s domestic migration policies.

“The Australian government is motivated by very self-interested strategic concerns here,” Herscovitch told RNZ Pacific.

“They are not ultimately doing it because they want to assist the people of Nauru, Canberra is doing it because it wants to keep China at bay and it wants to keep offshore processing in play.”

The Refugee Action Coalition in Sydney agrees.

The Coalition’s spokesperson Ian Rintoul said Canberra had effectively bribed Nauru so it could keep refugees out of Australia.

“It’s a very sordid game. It’s a corrupt arrangement that the Australian government has actually bought Nauru and made it a wing of its domestic anti-refugee policies,” he said.

“It’s small beer for the Australian government that thinks that off-shore detention is critical to its domestic political policies.”

Rintoul said that in the past foreign aid had not been used to improve life for Nauruans.

“The relationship between Nauru and Australia is pretty extraordinary and Nauru has been able to effectively extort huge amounts of foreign aid to upgrade their prison, they’ve built sports facilities,” he said.

“I suspect a large amount of it has also found its way into the pockets of various elites.”

Herscovitch said Nauru is in a prime position to negotiate with its former coloniser.

“When China comes knocking, Australia immediately gets nervous and wants to put on the table offers that will keep those Pacific countries coming back to Australia.

“That provides a wide range of Pacific countries with a huge amount of leverage to extract better terms from Australia.”

He added it was unclear exactly how the funds would be used in Nauru.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Refugee Action Coalition has called Australia’s apparent attempt to walk away from its responsibilities for the refugees it dumped in Papua New Guinea an outrage.

Australia announced last week that by the end of this year it will end its offshore detention arrangement with PNG.

The scheme was declared illegal by the PNG courts five years ago but 124 people, most of whom have been judged to be refugees, remain there.

• READ MORE: Australia, Nauru renew commitment to detention centre
• Other Pacific refugee articles

The coalition’s Ian Rintoul said PNG had no capacity, or desire, to look after these people, or search for third countries to take them off their hands.

“I think it is just a continuation of the Australian government trying to distance itself from the atrocities they are responsible for in Manus Island in Papua New Guinea,” he said.

“They have been trying for many years to try and distance themselves from the responsibility for people that they took there illegally, according to PNG law, but who they take no responsibility for.”

Last month Australia signed a new long term commitment with Nauru to continue to run its detention facility — the only place where Australia will send people trying to arrive on the mainland illegally by boat.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.