Contemporary Asylum Policies between Human Rights Advocacy and Responsibility Outsourcing : the Cases of Australia and Canada

Abstract

Governments often walk a fine line between measures designed to decrease the ‘spontaneous’ influx of asylum seekers and their attempts to avoid credibility losses as human rights advocates. Recent developments in Australia and Canada show that their governments have been relying on the following interrelated strategies that allow them to partially solve the resulting consistency problem: (1) Using refugee resettlement to present themselves as protectors of the right to asylum, while (2) trying to impede ‘spontaneous arrivals’ through strict border regimes and harsh conditions aiming at deterrence, and at the same time (3) distancing themselves from the implementation of related measures. The findings of this article indicate that, by delegating morally questionable tasks and thus outsourcing responsibility for the ‘dirty work’, the governments of both Australia and Canada attempt to avoid loss of image and balance their humanitarian obligations with policies - more or less explicitly - aiming at controlling and decreasing the admission of asylum seekers.