Regional deterrence and ‘non-genuine’ refugees: The punitive legacy of the 1989 Comprehensive Plan of Action

Abstract

The outsourcing of refugee protection obligations is reshaping state relations in the Asia Pacific and Southeast Asian region and has underscored a progressively punitive approach to ‘irregular’ refugee movement. Such a shift can be partially but importantly traced to the deterrent foundations of Australia's dual-track processing system, introduced as an outcome of the 1989 Comprehensive Plan of Action on Indochinese Refugees (CPA). Although the CPA was a multilateral attempt to improve access to refugee protection through a coordinated regional response, in many respects it undermined the potential for refugee protection. By examining the history and motivations of regional responses, we can trace their impact as an exercise in either affirming or disavowing regional responsibility for refugee protection, while enabling some states to retain and even increase their capacity for control in the region. Given the call by the Global Compact on Refugees for coordinated regionally responsive approaches based on humanitarian principles, the crafting of regional and global plans, their motives and their governing logic, require ongoing and careful attention to ascertain the forms of responsibility or irresponsibility for refugee protection which they might sustain over time.

The Politics of Exhaustion and the Externalization of British Border Control. An Articulation of a Strategy Designed to Deter, Control and Exclude

“…Weber and Pickering argue that "new forms of border governance are emerging that seek to shape individual decision-making to promote "voluntary" compliance with migration management goals" (2014: 17). Along similar lines, Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish scholar and writer who was held in detention in the Australian-run detention centre on Manus Island for years, noted that "the system in these prisons has been created so that incarcerated refugees experience an unbearable amount of pressure, reach the point of hopelessness, and finally decide to return to their country of origin" (Boochani, cited in Loughnan, 2019a). The same logic of "intent management" (Weber and Pickering, 2014) could be assumed to constitute an underlying purpose and intention of the politics of exhaustion.…”

“…The withdrawal of state care, coupled with the hampering of third sector alternatives, is an inherent component of the politics of exhaustion, and one which contributes directly to the production of additional vulnerabilities among the displaced people in the area. The notion of "active neglect," elaborated by Loughnan (2019a) in the context of Australian externalization provides a useful lens for understanding the withdrawal of care in northern France. "Active neglect" is defined by Loughnan (2019a) as the removal of government support services combined with the erosion of hope and wellbeing among refugees and asylum seekers through unfulfilled promises and refusals.…”

“…In a similar vein, Davies et al (2017) write about the violent consequences of state (in)action (2017:1) in informal makeshift camps in Europe, including the camp in Calais in 2015, and argue that inaction can be used as a means of control. Thus, in line with Loughnan (2019a) and Davies et al (2017), the "active neglect" or "violent state inaction" in the context of northern France can be understood as a strategic practice, through which the state intends to produce suffering and/or control people. In December 2018, an Iranian interlocutor commented with disbelief on the improvised living space which he was inhabiting:…”

“…The camp residents had access to regular distribution of hot and cold food items, clothing, tents, sleeping bags and provision of phone charging facilities and Wi-Fi. The vacuum left by the state's "active neglect" (Loughnan, 2019a) was thus filled by an immense influx of donations, financial aid and grassroots volunteerism (see e.g. Sandri, 2018).…”

“…4 Secondly, it is argued that a theorization of the politics of exhaustion as a strategic approach to migration control serves to underscore the extent to which the externalization in the UK-France setting in many ways mirrors the violent and harmful nature of the more accentuated and widely denounced examples of externalization in the context of Italy-Libya, Spain-Morocco, Australia-Indonesia and beyond. By theorizing the politics of exhaustion as a systematic, strategic approach to border control in northern France, composed of otherwise hard-to-discern forms of harm and violence due to their gradual and unremitting effects (Loughnan, 2019a), the article cuts across the "dichotomy of intended versus unintended harms" (Weber and Pickering, 2011: 94). It is argued that, irrespective of the intent behind some of the more seemingly benign forms of practices and methods, the bordering tactics are essentially malignant in their outcomes (see e.g.…”