Australia violated the rights of asylum seekers arbitrarily detained on the island of Nauru, a UN watchdog has ruled in a warning to other countries intent on outsourcing asylum processing.
The UN human rights committee published decisions in two cases involving 25 refugees and asylum seekers who endured years of arbitrary detention in the island nation.
“A state party cannot escape its human rights responsibility when outsourcing asylum processing to another state,” committee member, Mahjoub El Haiba said.
Under a hardline policy introduced more than a decade ago, Australia has sent thousands of people trying to reach the country by boat to detention centres on Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Manus Island and the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru, which lies further to the north-west.
Victims in both cases filed complaints to the UN committee of 18 independent experts, charging that Australia had violated their rights under an international covenant, in particular regarding arbitrary detention.
Australia rejected the allegations, insisting that abuses that occurred in Nauru did not fall within its jurisdiction.
But the UN committee highlighted that Australia had arranged to establish Nauru’s regional processing centre and contributed to its operation and management.
El Haiba said Australia did have jurisdiction because it “had significant control and influence over the regional processing facility in Nauru”.
Several European countries have been examining the possibility of similar arrangements to outsource their migration policies.
The UK’s Rwanda scheme was ultimately abandoned after courts ruled it unlawful and a change of government, and Italy’s plan to detain asylum seekers in centres in Albania hit problems last year when a court raised doubts about its compliance with European Union law.
Thursday’s decisions “send a clear message to all states: Where there is power or effective control, there is responsibility”, El Haiba said.
“The outsourcing of operations does not absolve states of accountability. Offshore detention facilities are not human rights-free zones.”
The first case examined by the committee involved 24 unaccompanied minors who were intercepted at sea by Australia and transferred to Nauru’s overcrowded regional processing centre in 2014.
They were held there “with insufficient water supply and sanitation, high temperatures and humidity, as well as inadequate healthcare”, Thursday’s statement said.
“Almost all of these minors have suffered from deterioration of physical and mental well-being, including self-harm, depression, kidney problems, insomnia, headaches, memory problems and weight loss.”
The committee said Australia had failed to justify why the minors could not have been transferred to centres on the mainland more suitable for vulnerable individuals.
The committee separately evaluated the case of an Iranian asylum seeker who arrived by boat on Christmas Island with several family members in August 2013 and was transferred seven months later to Nauru.
The woman was recognised as a refugee by Nauru authorities in 2017 but was not released. In November 2018, she was transferred to Australia for medical reasons but remained detained in various facilities there, the committee said.
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It determined that Australia had failed to show that the woman’s prolonged and indefinite detention was justified.
The committee called on Australia to compensate the victims and take steps to ensure that similar violations do not recur.
The committee has no power to compel states to follow its rulings, but its decisions carry reputational weight.
The Australian government, in correspondence with the UN committee, said the complaints were inadmissible because Australia was not responsible for the treatment of asylum seekers or refugees on Nauru.
But it said it “works closely” with the government of Nauru “to support the provision of health, welfare and support services”.
A spokesperson for the department of home affairs told the Guardian on Friday: “It has been the Australian government’s consistent position that Australia does not exercise effective control over regional processing centres. We welcome Nauru’s continued partnership in the effective delivery of regional processing arrangements.”
Jana Favero, the deputy chief executive of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said the human rights committee decision “confirms what we have been saying and has been abundantly clear for a decade – that Australia has a duty of care and responsibility to those who seek safety on our shores”.
She said successive Australian governments had tried to shirk their responsibilities by banishing people offshore.
“Men, women, children, families have all suffered, and continue to suffer, at the hands of Australian politicians obsessed with punishing people seeking safety and pretending that our responsibility ends once we send people offshore.”
The processing centre on Nauru remains Australia’s sole “enduring” offshore site after the Manus island detention was ordered shut by PNG’s supreme court.
Australia’s offshore processing policy and practices have been consistently criticised by the United Nations, human rights groups and refugees.
At least 12 people have died in the camps, including being murdered by guards, through medical neglect and by suicide. Psychiatrists sent to work in them have described the conditions as “inherently toxic” and akin to “torture”.