UN: Manus guidelines needed

THE United Nations refugee agency has detailed five major concerns about the Julia Gillard government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Manus Island in the coming weeks.
They include PNG’s failure to sign international treaties against torture and for the protection of stateless people or to formally withdraw seven reservations it has about the refugee convention.
The agency is worried by the absence of any national legal or regulatory framework to address refugee issues in PNG – or even laws or procedures for the determination of refugee status.
In a letter to immigration minister Chris Bowen, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, welcomed a commitment from PNG to withdraw reservations about rights that would apply to those found to be refugees, but said, “They remain extant at the time of writing”.
Dated Oct 9, the letter describes an absence of “any national capacity” in PNG to implement international obligations.
“We recognise that efforts are presently being made to identify and train a small cadre of officers in asylum and refugee issues,” Guterres wrote.
“Over time, capacity will improve but, depending on the scale and complexity of the task of processing cases and protecting refugees under the bilateral arrangements, it will likely remain insufficient for a period of time.”
The agency said the risk of refoulement, or return to their place of persecution, remained in spite of written undertakings that it would not take place. This was because of the porous and often unregulated nature of PNG’s borders and the limited understanding by border officials of PNG’s protection responsibilities.
“In the past six years, a number of attempted expulsions, particularly on the northern border with Indonesia, have been brought to the attention of the UNHCR and the office managed to prevent them,” the letter said.
The final concern related to the quality of protection for asylum seekers and refugees, especially because of the “very limited opportunities for sustainable local integration”.
This comes as another asylum seeker boat carrying 70 people has been found off the Cocos Islands.
The government said the boat was intercepted by the Australian customs vessel Hervey Bay north of the Indian Ocean islands yesterday after being seen by a RAAF patrol aircraft.
It is the fourth boat arrival in two days, taking the number of people who have been picked up since Tuesday to 334. The new arrivals will be taken to a detention centre on Christmas Island for security and health checks.
The letter highlighted the agency’s reservations about the “no-advantage test” that is intended to apply to those sent to Manus Island and Nauru, whereby they will remain at these locations for the time it would have taken for them to be processed and resettled from transit countries”.
It argues that the time taken to resettle cases referred to the UNHCR in South-East Asia may not be a “suitable comparator”; that there is no “average” time for resettlement from transit countries; and that the test appears to be based on the longer term aspiration for regional processing to be in place.
While supporting the aspiration, the UNHCR described regional arrangements as “very much in their early conceptualisation”.
A resolution permitting the transfer of asylum seekers passed through the Australian federal parliament this week.