Ditch the Convention

Adrienne Millbank, in “Ditch the UN Refugee Convention”, writes:

Once again Australia’s offshore (Nauru and Manus Island) and onshore processing centres are swamped and we are confronted with images of distressed asylum-seekers self-harming, lip-sewing and hunger-striking.  Such images are jarring and confusing in a country of migration where new arrivals are supposed to be welcomed as equals.
Australia’s border protection efforts and their appalling effects do not reflect a country that has turned its back on migrants and refugees; they reflect an asylum system that is crumbling under its own outrageous costs and contradictions.  The problem with the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees is that it legitimises unregulated entry.  And unregulated inflows of economic migrants and asylum-seekers are anathema to managed migration and refugee resettlement.
Australia may be approaching a tipping point in its always uneasy relationship with the refugee convention.  The Howard-era border protection policies, reinstated by the Labor government in desperation after it had abolished them, are not working.  Nor are measures recommended by the hastily convened expert panel to which the Prime Minister, in even greater desperation, abrogated responsibility. Indeed, the expansion of the humanitarian program to 20,000 places is encouraging more asylum-seekers.
Last year, more than 17,000 asylum-seekers arrived. More than 30,000 are projected for this year.  […]  At least 1000 people have drowned at sea.  […]
As a country of migration, Australia needs its refugee policy to be sensible, morally defensible and well regulated.
We may have reached the point where the country’s legal obligations need to be brought into line with public expectations that the government will control the borders and that migration will be managed.  It is time to rethink dubious international obligations and to argue Australia’s case.  Australia should require asylum-seekers wanting to settle in this country to apply for a refugee or humanitarian visa offshore, through our overseas posts or the UNHCR.

I maintain that, once Australia discards the Refugee Convention (and other inutile UN conventions) and stops wasting funding thereon, we could easily (and less expensively) provide homes to legitimate refugees, and even to feigned refugees, in a Free City.

UPDATE I (10 May):  see “Richard Falk and the Crooked Ways of UN Rules” by Claudia Rosett:

[George] Russell has also unearthed the information—buried in a 183-page report from the UN’s External Board of Auditors—that Human Rights Council special rapporteurs, such as [Richard] Falk, are not required to disclose any support they might get from institutions or individual governments.  […]
In other words, while UN special rapporteurs appear to be doing altruistic work for a token fee, the Human Rights Council has effectively issued them a license to operate under the UN logo, expenses paid by the UN—and at the same time, allows them to accept funding from who-knows-whom with who-knows-what-agenda, and no requirement to disclose any of it.  Oh, and P.S., there is no provision for firing them […].  It may happen that some of these special rapporteurs try to operate with integrity.  But this is yet another instance in which, if the UN had set out to design a crooked setup, it’s hard to think how they could have done a better job of it.  It’s time to think bigger than firing Richard Falk.  How about finding a way to fire the entire Human Rights Council?

See George Russell’s “Anti-Israel UN human rights official can’t be fired, State Department says”:

In all, including Falk, there are now 48 different U.N. special rapporteurs or working groups that report on alleged human rights deficiencies around the world under the auspices of the 47-member Council.  Another mandate, covering human rights in Mali, is expected to become active in June.
The U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on its website terms the special procedure experts “a central element of the United Nations human rights machinery.”
Their mandates—generated by resolutions of the Human Rights Council—range from monitoring human rights practices in specific countries—North Korea and Iran, to name two—to such exotic new specialties as “monitoring the human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes,” and “the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence” for countries emerging from prolonged civil conflict.  […]
According to internal Human Rights Commission estimates obtained by Fox News, the likely cost of new country-specific mandates for rapporteurs and experts can currently range from about $240,000 each to nearly $600,000 per year.
So-called “thematic” mandates, such as “human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment” and “promotion of a democratic and equitable international order” can apparently range from $500,000 to $1.1 million annually.
The overall total for 2013, according to the OHCHR, is $18.55 million, up marginally from last yet, but a 20 percent hike from $15.5 million in 2011.
The two year total for 2012 and 2013 of $36.9 million is a very impressive portion of the roughly $54.7 million, or 12 percent, of its 2012-2013 annual budget of $448.1 million that the U.N.’s Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights has allocated for not only the special procedures experts but for the entire Human Rights Council.  […]
“It is a general observation that a U.N. budget is typically opaque, and difficult to decipher,” observers Brett Schaefer, a U.N. expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation.  But the fact is that the real costs and spending by the U.N.’s special rapporteurs is something a mystery even to the U.N.’s own Board of Auditors.
In their most recent report, which covers the years 2010-2011, the auditors note that OHCHR “mandate holders”—another term for the special rapporteurs and experts—“are not required to disclose support” they may get from institutions or individual governments over and above their OHCHR budgets.
The auditors worried that “the absence of clear disclosures could put in doubt the perceived independence of mandate holders.”
And the number of mandate holders, meantime, keeps growing.
In 2012, according to the OHCHR, the Council created new special rapporteur mandates in Syria, Eritrea and Belarus, added new Independent Experts in Cote d’Ivoire, and Sudan, and instituted new thematic mandates on “the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment;” truth, justice and non-recurrence; and the equitable international order.
“Are all the mandates good and useful?” asks UN Watch’s [Hillel] Neuer.  “Do we need a human rights mandate on the right to food?  The U.N. has several massive food agencies already.  The Human Rights Council can’t feed anyone.  Should it be talking about this?”

UPDATE II (11 May):  the extent and cost of the problem which Australians must address is also detailed in “Tony Abbott must turn change of government into his Tampa moment”, by Chris Kenny:

In just over four months this year, 8767 people have arrived on 127 boats.  At this rate the number will be more than 20,000 this year, after topping 17,000 last year.
This is a terrible blow to the integrity of the nation's immigration system.  It means our full humanitarian quota—and more—is self-selected.  People-smugglers, rather than our immigration officials, determine our humanitarian intake.
This leaves thousands of refugees who abide by the rules, applying through orderly processes, wallowing in camps, with their small hope of settlement in Australia dwindling away to nothing.
Domestically, public confidence is tested, undermining support for immigration.
Hundreds of lives have been lost and each boat journey is dangerous, with evidence the risks are increasing as more decrepit boats are used and smugglers try to target the mainland to exploit legal loopholes.
There are also national security risks, with more than 50 refugees indefinitely detained after failing ASIO assessments.
So the failure to stem the people-smuggling trade is unfair, costs lives, threatens national security and undermines our immigration program.  It is also extremely costly—estimated to top $2 billion this financial year.