The Failure of Australia's
NOT FOR EXPORT: THE FAILURE OF AUSTRALIA’S EXTRATERRITORIAL PROCESSING REGIME IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA AND THE DECISION OF THE PNG SUPREME COURT IN NAMAH (2016) AZADEH DASTYARI* AND MARIA O’SULLIVAN** I INTRODUCTION Manus Island shocked me to my core. I saw sick and defeated men crammed behind fences and being denied their basic human rights, padlocked inside small areas in rooms often with no windows and being mistreated by those who were employed to care for their safety.1 Please, we can’t sleep. We are scared all the time. We have no (running) water, no safety. Please report this, we want freedom.2 The so-called ‘Pacific Solution’ operated by successive Australian governments to deal with refugee boat arrivals has been the subject of domestic and international criticism.3 It is, however, now an arrangement which certain other countries are looking to as a possible model to emulate.4 The Pacific Solution has * Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law and Associate to the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash University. ** Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law and Associate to the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash University. 1 Nicole Judge, quoted in Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee, Parliament of Australia, Incident at the Manus Island Detention Centre from 16 February to 18 February 2014 (2014) 37 [3.1]. 2 Detainees at Manus Island Detention Centre, quoted in ‘The View inside the Manus Island Detention Centre’, SBS News (online), 21 March 2014 <http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/03/21/view- inside-manus-island-detention-centre>.
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