Seeking asylum in the region
Date: Thursday 18th November 12:30—2:00 pm
Venue: Room 488 Martin Building,
La Trobe University, Melbourne
Speaker: Dr Savitri Taylor
Senior Lecturer, School of Law, La Trobe University
Overview:
Australia, as one of only three developed countries in the Asia Pacific region, seems to have become the ultimate destination of increasing numbers of irregularly moving asylum seekers. It is keen to develop some kind of regional refugee protection framework as a way of taking back control of its borders and is already working towards that end in various bilateral and regional contexts. Since the primary motivation of Australia and other states is the safeguarding of their own security, it cannot of course be taken for granted that any regional protection framework they devise will actually protect refugees. In light of this reality, Dr Taylor has just commenced a research project which has as its purpose the investigation of the following questions:
ii) How can these principles best be operationalised in the Asia-Pacific region keeping in mind the particular economic, political etc circumstances of the region?
iii) To the extent that any protection framework evolving in our region is diverging from possible best practice, how can regional civil society intervene effectively to minimise such divergence?
While Dr Taylor has yet to find the answers she has a few ideas that she will share at this seminar. After her presentation, she looks forward to a conversation which will help her work out which ideas are worth pursuing and which aren't.
Further information:
Visit Dr Savitri Taylor's staff profile which lists all recent refereed journal articles and book chapters. Dr Taylor has also provided a more targeted reading list below:
- S. Taylor and B. Rafferty-Brown, ‘Waiting for Life to Begin: The Plight of Asylum Seekers Caught by Australia’s Indonesian Solution’, International Journal of Refugee Law (Advance access online 7 October 2010 doi:10.1093/ijrl/eeq034)
- S. Taylor, 'Australia's expanding borders', Inside Story, posted 3 December 2009, http://inside.org.au/australias-expanding-borders/
- S. Taylor and B. Rafferty-Brown, 'Liberalism's Asylum Dilemma', Inside Story, posted 28 October 2009, http://inside.org.au/liberalisms-asylum-dilemma
- S. Taylor, 'From border control to migration management: The case for a Paradigm Change in the Western Response to Transborder Population Movement’ in C. Jones Finer (ed.) Migration, Immigration and Social Policy (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006) 5- 28. First published in (2005) 39(6) Social Policy & Administration: An International Journal of Policy and Research 563-586.
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Further information
Seminar Convenor
Dr Ramon Spaaij
E: R.Spaaij@latrobe.edu.au
T: +61 3 9479 1985