This guide presents humane and cost effective mechanisms to prevent the unnecessary and damaging detention of refugees and aims to ensure that detention is only ever used as a last resort. Governments around the world are increasingly using detention as a migration management tool, with refugees, asylum seekers and migrants detained for prolonged periods. However...

The debate about refugees and asylum seekers is confused by a misunderstanding of the origins of the 1951 Refugee Convention, writes Klaus Neumann on Inside Story.

The High Court recently handed down a judgment that may have significant implications for offshore processing of asylum seekers, a key policy of both Labor and the Coalition.

This background note provides a snap-shot of significant developments in Australian refugee law and policy under Labor’s first term in office. It begins by providing a chronology of key events from November 2007, when the ALP won the 2007 federal election to July 2010, when Parliament was prorogued for the 2010 federal election. Part I...

As more and more refugees arrive in Australian waters by boat, Rear Vision takes a look at the history of Australia's policies on asylum seekers, from the first boatload of Vietnamese back in 1976 through to today. First broadcast 7/4/2010 Guests Mary CrockProfessor of Public Law in the Department of law at the University of...