Ethics and exclusion: Representations of sovereignty in Australia's approach to asylum-seekers

Review of International Studies

Volumn 32, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 269-289

  Gelber, Katharine ^a   Mcdonald, Matt ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33744755419     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210506007029     Document Type: Review

References (146)

1. Phillip Ruddock, House of Representatives Hansard, 18 September 2001, pp. 30869-72.
2. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan, 1995), p. 83, our emphasis.
3. Although it should be noted that Bull did acknowledge the possibility that concerns of justice could, in the future, 'win out' over concerns of the preservation of order within international society. Bull, The Anarchical Society, pp. 74-94.
4. Robert Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
5. Christian Reus-Smith 'Human Rights and the Social Construction of Sovereignty', Review of International Studies, 27:4 (2001), pp. 519-38.
6. This point underpins Jackson's rejection of the imperative for intervention in response to humanitarian crises (in Quasi-States, and Robert Jackson, The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
7. See, for example, Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
8. Ken Booth, 'Security and Emancipation', Review of International Studies, 17:2 (2001), pp. 313-26;
9. Bill McSweeney, Security, Identity and Interests: A Sociology of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999);
10. Nicholas Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
11. Such a conception is evident in a range of definitions of sovereignty in international relations, including negative (Jackson, Quasi States, pp. 27-9),
12. external (Bull, The Anarchical Society, pp. 16-17),
13. juridical (Samuel Makinda, 'The United Nations and State Sovereignty: Mechanisms for Managing International Security', Australian Journal of Political Science, 33:1 (1998), p. 104)
14. or Westphalian sovereignty (Stephen Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 3-4).
15. Such a conception of sovereignty is particularly apparent in the work of proponents of humanitarian intervention. For example Wheeler, Saving Strangers;
16. Alex J. Bellamy, 'Humanitarian Intervention and International Society', Review of International Studies, 29:3 (2003), pp. 321-40.
17. On this point, see Jens Bartelsen, A Genealogy of Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
18. Norman Fairclough, Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (London: Longman, 1995), p. 1.
19. On this point, see R. B. J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 159-83.
20. Wouter Werner and Jaap de Wilde, 'The Endurance of Sovereignty', European Journal of International Relations, 7:3 (2001), p. 302.
21. William Maley, for example, argues that when Australia acceded to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 'it relinquished as a sovereign act any absolute control over who could enter the country and under what, circumstances'.
22. William Maley, 'Asylum-Seekers in Australia's International Relations', Australian Journal of International Affairs, 57:1 (2003), p. 189.
23. M. Gibney, 'Liberal Democratic States and Responsibilities to Refugees', American Political Science Review, 93:1 (1999), p. 178.
24. On these, points, see Don McMaster, 'Asylum-Seekers and the Insecurity of a Nation', Australian Journal of International Affairs, 56:2 (2002), pp. 279-90.
25. The increase in suffering of asylum-seekers is particularly apparent in the context of the mental health implications of long periods in detention centres, particularly for children. On this point, see Mitchell Smith, 'Asylum-Seekers in Australia', Medical Journal of Australia, 175 (2001), pp. 587-9.
26. On this point, see Andrew Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community (Cambridge: Polity, 1998), p. 206).
27. For a discussion of partial and impartial approaches to the obligations of liberal democratic states to refugees and asylum-seekers, see Gibney, 'Liberal Democratic States'.
28. On Australia's historical fear of (particularly Asian) immigration, see Don McMaster, Asylum Seekers: Australia's Response to Refugees (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001).
29. Katharine Gelber, 'A Fair Queue? Australian Public Discourse on Refugees and Immigration', Journal of Australian Studies, 77 (2003), p. 29.
30. Sophie Morris, 'New Bid to Repel Asylum Seekers', The Australian, 5 November 2003, pp. 1, 6.
31. This created a diplomatic furore, with an Indonesian Immigration Department spokesperson arguing that Australia was treating Indonesia like a 'trash bin'. Kimina Lyall; Sophie Morris and Marianne Kearney, 'Not Your Trash Bin', The Australian, 13 November 2003, p. 1.
32. When parliament reconvened on 24 November the regulations were disallowed by the Senate: Mark Phillips, '4000 islands put back on the map', Herald-Sun, 25 November (2003), p. 2.
33. McMaster, Asylum Seekers, p. 67.
34. Jean-Pierre Fonteyne, 'Illegal Refugees or Illegal Policy?', in Refugees and the Myth of the Borderless World (Canberra: RSPAS, Australian National University, 2002), p. 20.
35. Gelber, 'A Fair Queue?', p. 29;
36. Minister for Immigration, Multicultural arid Indigenous Affairs, Media Release: Australia's Border Integrity Strengthened by New Legislation, MPS164/2001, 26 September 2001, 〈http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media_releases/ruddock_media01/r01164. htm〉.
37. Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affaire [DIMIA], Fact Sheet 64: Temporary Protection Visas, 2003, 〈http://www.dimia.gov.au/facts/64protection.htm〉.
38. In August 2004 the system of temporary protection visas was modified slightly to allow some asylum-seekers to apply for permanent visa categories after their initial temporary protection visa had expired: Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affaire [CIMIA], Measures for Temporary Protection and Temporary Humanitarian Visa Holders 2004, 〈http://www.dimia.gov.au/refugee/tpv_thv/index.htm〉.
39. Fonteyne, 'Illegal Refugees', pp. 18; 20-21.
40. Maley, 'Asylum-Seekers', p. 187.
41. Michael Millett & Michael Bradley, 'Criminals 'better off than asylum seekers', Sydney Morning Herald, 7 June 2002, p. 2.
42. Michael Millett, 'Worst I've seen says UN asylum centre inspector', Sydney Morning Herald, 6 June 2002, p. 1.
43. Cynthia Banham, 'UN deplores "tragedy" of asylum system', Sydney Morning Herald, 1 August 2002, p. 1.
44. For further examination of United Nations' criticisms of Australia's policies towards asylum-seekers and on other grounds deemed racially discriminatory, see David Kinley and Penny Martin, 'International Human Rights Law at Home: Addressing the Politics of Denial', Melbourne University Law Review, 26 (2002), pp. 469-70.
45. For more general criticism of Australia's compliance with the terms of international human rights treaties see Elizabeth Evatt, 'How Australia "Supports" the United Nations Human Rights Treaty System: Comment', Public Law Review, 12 (2001), pp. 3-8.
46. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission [HREOC], 2004, A Last Resort? Report of the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention (Sydney: HREOC, 2004), 〈http://www.hreoc.gov.au//human_rights/children_detention_report/index. html〉.
47. Alexander Downer, Interview on ABC 7.30 Report: Government to Review Participation in UN Treaty Committee System, 30 March 2000;
48. Kinley arid Martin, 'International Human Rights Law', p. 468.
49. Robert Garran, 'No need for UN's help - PM', The Australian, 31 August 2000, p. 2.
50. Alexander Downer, House of Representatives Hansard, 18 June 2000, p. 3606;
51. Alexander Downer, National Press Club Speech: Advancing the National Interest: Australia's Foreign Policy Challenge, 7 May 2000, 〈http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/2002/020507_fa_whitepaper. html〉.
52. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, cited in David Goldsworthy, 'An Overview', in Cotton and Ravenhill (eds.), The National Interest in a Global Era: Australia in World Affairs 1996-2000 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 11.
53. On 'good international citizenship' see Andrew Linklater, 'What is a Good International Citizen', in Paul Real (ed.), Ethics and Foreign Policy (St Leonards: Allen arid Unwin, 1992).
54. On broader trends in Australian foreign policy undnr the conservative Howard government, see for example Goldsworthy, 'An Overview';
55. Joseph Camilleri, 'A Leap Into the Past - In the Name of the National Interest', Australian Journal of International Affairs, 57:3 (2003), pp. 431-53;
56. and Matt McDonald, 'Constructing Insecurity: Australian Security Discourse and Policy Post-2001', International Relations, 19:3 (2005), pp. 297-320.
57. Krasner, Sovereignty, pp. 20-5.
58. Maley, 'Asylum-Seekers', p. 188.
59. Jackson, The Global Covenant, p. 27.
60. Peter Carens, 'Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders', Review of Politics, 49:2 (1987), p. 266.
61. There were also important representations of sovereignty regarding international criticism of mandatory detention policies, however for the most part representations of sovereignty regarding asylum-seekers centred on the question of border control.
62. In Anthony Burke, In Fear of Security: Australia's Invasion Anxiety (Sydney: Pluto, 2001), p. 322.
63. Robert Hill, Senate Hansard, 30 August 2001, p. 27090.
64. Gary Hardgrave, House of Representatives Hansard, 30 August 2001, p. 30703.
65. John Howard, Interview with Alan Jones, Radio 2UE, 30 August 2001, 〈http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/2001/interview1199.htm〉.
66. John Howard, Interview with Kerri-Anne Kennerley, Radio 2GB, 1 November 2001, 〈http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/2001/interview1434.htm〉;
67. Howard cited in Fran Kelly, ABC TV 7.30 Report Tampa Retrospective, 26 August 2002, 〈http://www.abc.net.an/7.30/content/2002/s659178.htm〉.
68. Alexander Downer arid Phillip Ruddock, Joint Media Release: Government Rejects UN Report on Arbitrary Detention, FA 184, 13 December 2002, 〈http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/releases/2002/fa184a_02.html〉.
69. John Howard, House of Representatives Hansard, 29 August 2001, p. 30569.
70. John Howard, Interview with Jeremy Cordeaux, 5DN, 29 August 2001, 〈http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/2001/interview1197.htm〉.
71. Phillip Ruddock, House of Representatives Hansard, 18 September 2001, pp. 30809-72.
72. Coalition, The Howard Government: Putting Australia's Interests First, Election 2001: Immigration Policy Statement (2001), p. 13.
73. Alexander Downer, Phillip Ruddock and Darryl Williams, Joint Media Release: Government Rejects the Report of the UN Human Rights Commissioner's Envoy into Human Rights and Immigration Detention, FA109, 31 July 2002, 〈http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/releases/2002/fa109_02_un_hr_report. html〉.
74. Howard, Hansard, 29 August 2001, p. 30569.
75. Ruddock, Hansard, 18 September 2001, p. 30869.
76. Hill, Senate Hansard, 30 August 2001, p. 27090.
77. Howard, Interview with Alan Jones.
78. Santo Santoro, Senate Hansard, 16 June 2003, p. 11353.
79. Of course, this representation of the 'nonsense' of arguments regarding the increasingly untenable idea of exclusive sovereignty appears inconsistent with the fact that human rights commitments made by Australia, specifically regarding asylum-seekers, already implicitly rejected this conception (Pace, Senate Select Committee) and that the government appeared willing to compromise its sovereignty (defined in exclusive terms) regarding other areas of interdependence sovereignty such as trade, for example (see Maley, 'Asylum-Seekers', p. 189).
80. Ruddock, Hansard, 18 September 2001, pp. 30869-72.
81. Hill, Hansard, 30 August 2001, p. 27090.
82. Santoro, Hansard, 16 June 2003, p. 11353.
83. Howard, Interview with Alan Jones.
84. On the Australian government's definition of its national interest and in particular on the choices and assumptions made in conceiving of Australia's national interests in these ways, see Camilleri, 'A Leap into the Past'.
85. Downer, National Press Club Speech.
86. Bull, The Anarchical Society;
87. Jackson, The Global Covenant.
88. Downer, National Press Club Speech.
89. John Howard, Interview with Rosemary Church CNN, 31 August 2001, 〈http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/2001/interview1203.htm〉.
90. Howard, Interview with Alan Jones.
91. Howard, Interview with Alan Jones. Ibid.
92. John Howard, Interview with Charles Woolley, 60 Minutes, 2 September 2001, 〈http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/2001/interview1210.htm〉.
93. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 49.
94. For example, the use of the term 'illegals' prioritises domestic legal constructions of what constitutes authorised arrival. This contradicts Article 31 of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (to which Australia is a signatory), which specifies that there should be no penalty by signatories to the Convention for entry by asylum-seekers without legal authorisation. The use of the term 'queue-jumpers' is also empirically questionable in that it implies the existence of an ordered or legitimate 'queue' for processing of claims for asylum which often does riot exist (see Gelber, 'A Fair Queue?').
95. Finally, there has been no evidence of terrorists being among those seeking asylum since 2001, and this link has been rejected by a range of analysts: see Michael Madigan, 'Boat terror links claimed', The Courier-Mail, 20 September 2001, p. 2.
96. For example, In the lead up to the 2001 Federal election the Defence Minister Peter Reith claimed to have evidence that asylum-seekers were throwing children overboard, a claim acknowledged by the government, (after the election) to have been untrue.
97. Howard, Hansard, 29 August 2001, p. 30569.
98. Howard, Interview with Alan Jones.
99. Howard, Interview with Rosemary Church.
100. Elaine Thompson, Fair Enough: Egalitarianism in Australia (Sydney: UNSW Press, 1994). Although Thompson argues that while a central component of how Australians see themselves and in dominant narratives of national identity, the notion of egalitarianism is not necessarily reflected in either policy or the material distribution of resources.
101. John Howard, Interview at Sydney Airport, 8 September 2001, 〈http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/2001/interview1223.htm〉.
102. John Howard, Interview with Jim Lehrer. News Hour PBS, Washington DC, 10 September 2001, 〈http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/2001/interview1232.htm〉.
103. In Kelly, ABC TV.
104. Peter Slipper, Interview with Seven Sunrise Cover Story: The Refugee Crisis, 2 September 2001, 〈http://www.news.com.au/common/storypage/0,4057,2898609%255E1702,00. html〉.
105. Downer et al., Joint Media Release FA109.
106. Alexander Downer and Mark Vaile, Doorstop Interview in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, 1 August 2002, 〈http://www.dfat.gov.au/media/transcripts/2002/ 20801_fa_malmou_unhchr_aftacer_dprk.html〉.
107. Neta Crawford, Argument and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 24.
108. Lawrence, Hansard, p. 4423.
109. This trend is particularly evident in Europe. Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, for example, used similar language to the Australian government in justifying hard-line approaches to asylum and immigration by referring to the danger of the EU being 'swamped' by an 'immigration time bomb' (in Alsm Travis, 'EU revives Blunkett's asylum camp plan', The Guardian, 20 September 2004, p. 9).
110. Human rights organisations have also described plans in the European Union to establish refugee processing camps In northern Africa, which would serve to deny asylum-seekers direct access to developed states in Europe, as 'an abandonment of Europe's historic commitment to refugee protection' (Phil Bloomer et al., 'Scrap asylum camp plans', The Guardian, 22 September 2004, p. 27).
111. As Geddes argues, 'European countries have actually increased both their capacity and willingness to control immigration, especially migration flows defined by state policies as unwanted, such as asylum seekers . . .'. (Andrew Geddes, The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe (London: Sage, 2003), p. 20).
112. Downer, Hansard, 30 May 2002, p. 2773.
113. Downer et al., Joint Media Release FA109.
114. Downer and Vaile, Doorstop Interview in Brunei.
115. Downer and Ruddock, Joint Media Release FA184.
116. John Howard and Phillip Ruddock, Joint Press Conference, Sydnny, 1 September 2001, 〈http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/2001/interview1206.htm).
117. Slipper, Interview with Seven Sunrise.
118. Downer, Hansard, 18 June 2002, p. 3606.
119. Phillip Ruddock, House of Representatives Hansard, 20 June 2002, p. 4019.
120. Ibid., House of Representatives Hansard, 26 March 2003, p. 13586.
121. Phillip Ruddock, Media Release MPS37.2003, 17 June 2003, 〈http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media_releases/ruddock_media03/r030307. htm〉.
122. Janice Bially Mattern, 'The Power Politics of Identity', European Journal of International Relations, 7: 3 (2001), p. 351.
123. A national opinion poll conducted within weeks of the Tampa incident in September 2001 indicated that 77% of the Australian population supported the government's position in denying the Tampa entry to Australia, while 71% supported the government's policy of indefinite detention of asylum-seekers (AC Nielsen poll in Burke, In Fear of Security, p. 323).
124. Walker, Inside/Outside.
125. On the positioning of asylum-seekers as security threats, see for example Roxanne Doty, 'Immigration and the Politics of Security', Security Studies, 8 (2/3) (1998/9), pp. 71-93
126. and Jef Huysmans, 'Defining Social Constructivism: the Normative Dilemma of Writing Security', Alternatives: Global, Local Political, 27 Special Issue (2002), pp. 41-62.
127. Andrew Bartlett, Senate Hansard, 24 September 2001, p. 27693;
128. Pace, Senate Select Committee.
129. Bartlett, Hansard;
130. Maley, 'Asylum-Seekers', pp. 188-90;
131. McMaster, Asylum Seekers.
132. Maley, 'Asylum-Seekers'.
133. Natasha Stott-Despoja, Senate Hansard, 24 September 2001, p. 27702;
134. Burke, In Fear of Security, pp. 329-31.
135. Bob Brown, Senate Hansard, 9 December 2002, p. 7494;
136. Julian Burnside, Refugees: the Tampa Case, 2002, 〈http://www.users.bigpond.com/burnside/tampa.htm);
137. Amnesty International Australia, Submission to Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee, July 2002, 〈http://www.amnesty.org.au/resources/submissions);
138. Malcolm Fraser, 'Dual refugee system shames us', Sydney Morning Herald, 4 October 2002, p. 11.
139. Lawrence, Hansard;
140. Kirsten Livermore, House of Representatives Hansard, 13 May 2003, p. 14013.
141. On the role of the Howard government's approach to asylum-seekers in its election victory in 2001, son David Marr and Marian Wilkinson, Dark Victory (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2003).
142. In August 2004 the system of temporary protection visas was modified slightly (see fn. 26). In July 2005 the federal government responded to pressure from within its own party and released children from mandatory detention (Andra Jackson, 'Last children in detention freed today', The Age, 29 July 2005, p. 5).
143. An independent report into the conduct of the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (the 'Palmer Report') in relation to the wrongful detention of an Australian citizen also delivered a scathing criticism of the department's procedures and attitudes (Mick Palmer, Inquiry Into the Circumstances of the Immigration Detention of Cornelia Rau (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2005) 〈http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media_releases/media05/palmer-report. pdf〉.
144. Burke, In Fear of Security;
145. McMaster, Asylum Seekers.
146. Institutionalised with the 1901 'Immigration Restriction Act', the White Australia Policy was designed to prevent access to Australia by non-white immigrants. The last vestiges of the policy were only removed in 1973.