Refugee Deterrence and Diplomacy: How states influence each other's asylum policies

As global displacement reaches its highest recorded levels, many governments around the world are seeking not to welcome but to deter asylum seekers. Policies such as detention, extraterritorial processing and turning back boats seem to be spreading globally, changing to suit their new environment and often becoming more virulent. But are they new? And how do these policies spread? 

This special panel discussion examines how scattered policymakers transfer asylum policies. Dr Daniel Ghezelbash (Macquarie University), author of Refuge Lost: Asylum Law in an Interdependent World; and eminent legal scholar Guy Goodwin-Gill (Acting Director, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law) will analyse how these policies play out in Australia, the United States, Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Moderated by Whitlam Institute Director Leanne Smith, this panel considers whether what is really under threat are our international institutions and principles of human rights.

About the Speakers

Dr Daniel Ghezelbash is a senior lecturer at Macquarie Law School, the founding director of the Macquarie University Social Justice Clinic, and a practicing refugee and immigration lawyer. His new book, Refuge Lost: Asylum Law in an Interdependent World (Cambridge University Press, 2018), analyses the way restrictive asylum policies are spreading around the world.

Professor Guy S Goodwin-Gill is the Acting Director of UNSW’s Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law. Widely recognised as the preeminent legal scholar in the field of international refugee law, he is Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and Emeritus Professor of International Refugee Law of the University of Oxford, and practises as a barrister from Blackstone Chambers in London.

Leanne Smith is Director of the Whitlam Institute. An international human rights lawyer with a Masters in Public Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, her career has encompassed roles as an Australian diplomat and in the United Nations, most recently as Chief of Policy and Best Practices for the UN Departments of Peacekeeping Operations and Field Support.