ISLAND OF DESPAIR
AUSTRALIA’S “PROCESSING” OF REFUGEES ON NAURU
Amnesty International
Nauru has a population of 10,000 people, and with 1,159 asylum-seekers and refugees it is presently the
country with the third highest proportion of refugees per capita in the world.
The island’s total land area is just 21 km
2
. The habitable land area, however, is even smaller, as phosphate
mining – conducted for nearly a century by foreign companies – has left the interior of the island
uninhabitable. Indeed, by the mid-20
th
century, the environmental devastation wrought by the mining
industry prompted various proposals by Australia to relocate Nauru’s entire population to an Australian island
off the coast of Queensland.
In the years that followed independence, revenues from phosphate mining
gave it the world’s second-highest per-capita GDP, behind only Saudi Arabia,
but by 2000, decreasing
phosphate royalties and financial mismanagement had bankrupted the country.
Although an independent country, Nauru is, in many respects, effectively a client state of Australia. Australia
is Nauru’s most important development aid donor; in 2016-17 Australia will provide AUD$25.5 million
(USD$19 million) in overseas development assistance.
In comparison, the country’s GDP in 2014 (the
most recent data available) was USD$117 million.
Australia provides skilled personnel to fill senior
management roles in Nauru’s public service, including (in 2015-16), the Deputy Secretaries for Treasury,
Finance, Customs, Planning and Aid Management, a Senior Tax Adviser as well as a Senior Human
Resource Management Adviser to the Chief Secretary of the Nauru Public Service.
Furthermore, as the
country lacks a private legal profession,
Australian judges and magistrates often serve on Nauru courts.
In 2015-16, Australia’s Attorney-General’s Department worked with Nauru’s Department of Justice and
Border Control to replace the Nauru Criminal Code of 1899 with the Crimes Act 2016.
The security sector
is another sphere in which Australia is influential. In 2004, after an Australian Department of Foreign Affairs
and Trade official described Nauru as being “on the verge of state failure,”
the two countries signed an
agreement
under which the Australian Federal Police became embedded in the state, and effectively took
charge of managing the Nauru Police Force.
Under this agreement, Australian personnel were immune
from the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the Nauruan authorities.
Nauru has become an increasingly authoritarian state, with the executive consolidating power at the expense
of the judicial and legislative branches of government. In 2014, Nauru effectively eliminated its judiciary
when it expelled its Chief Justice, Magistrate and Police Commissioner – all Australian citizens.
Geoffrey
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Regional_processing_Nauru/Regional_processing_Nauru/~/media/Com
mittees/nauru_ctte/Final_Report/report.pdf, paras. 1.18-1.19.
Ben Doherty and Helen Davidson, “Self-Immolation: Desperate Protests against Australia’s Detention Regime,” The Guardian, 3 May
2016, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/may/03/asylum-seekers-set-themselves-alight-nauru.
Jane McAdam, “How the Entire Nation of Nauru Almost Moved to Queensland,” The Conversation, 14 August 2016,
http://theconversation.com/how-the-entire-nation-of-nauru-almost-moved-to-queensland-63833.
Ben Doherty, “A Short History of Nauru, Australia’s Dumping Ground for Refugees,” The Guardian, 9 August 2016,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/10/a-short-history-of-nauru-australias-dumping-ground-for-refugees.
Senate Select Committee on the Recent Allegations Relating to Conditions and Circumstances at the Regional Processing Centre in
Nauru, Taking Responsibility: Conditions and Circumstances at Australia's Regional Processing Centre in Nauru, 31 July 2015,
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Regional_processing_Nauru/Regional_processing_Nauru/~/media/Com
mittees/nauru_ctte/Final_Report/report.pdf, paras. 1.18-1.19.
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “Overview of Australia's Aid Program to Nauru,” n.d.,
http://dfat.gov.au/geo/nauru/development-assistance/pages/development-assistance-in-nauru.aspx.
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “Nauru Country Brief,” n.d., http://dfat.gov.au/trade/resources/Documents/naur.pdf.
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Aid Program Performance Report 2015-16: Nauru, September 2016, p. 1.
UNICEF Pacific and Nauru Ministry of Home Affairs, Review of the Child Protection System in Nauru, 2016,
http://www.unicef.org.au/Upload/UNICEF/Media/Documents/Nauru-ChildProtection-Review.pdf, p. 35.
International Commission of Jurists, Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of the Republic of Nauru, March 2015,
http://icj2.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Nauru-UPR-Advocacy-2015-ENG.pdf, para. 5.
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Aid Program Performance Report 2015-16: Nauru, September 2016, p. 3.
Damien White, quoted in Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, “Chapter 5: Agreement Concerning Police and Assistance to Nauru”
from Report 63: Treaties tabled on 7 December 2004, 14 February 2005,
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Completed_Inquiries/jsct/12may2004/report, para. 5.2.
Agreement between Australia and Nauru Concerning Additional Police and Other Assistance to Nauru, 20 May 2004,
http://www.paclii.org/pits/en/treaty_database/2004/5.html.
Shahar Hameiri, “Governing Disorder: The Australian Federal Police and Australia’s New Regional Frontier,” The Pacific Review 22:5
(2009), p. 562.
Agreement between Australia and Nauru Concerning Additional Police and Other Assistance to Nauru, 20 May 2004,
http://www.paclii.org/pits/en/treaty_database/2004/5.html, Art. 7.
Amy Nethery and Rosa Holman, “Secrecy and Human Rights Abuse in Australia’s Offshore Immigration Detention Centres,” The
International Journal of Human Rights, July 2016, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2016.1196903, p. 11.