The Refugee Crisis and International Criminal Law: Are Australian Agents and Corporate Actors Committing Crimes Against Humanity?

Refugees and asylum seekers are currently under attack in many developed countries, including in European states, the US, and Australia. International criminal law has developed around the need for international institutions to intervene on behalf of the most vulnerable populations, when states are unwilling or unable to do so. Can international criminal prosecution help counter the current encroachment upon refugee rights? 

Currently, the most flagrant examples of such encroachment are Australian practices, which have also served as a model for migration restrictionists around the world. Our focus will be on the treatment of refugees in Nauru and Manus Island by Australian officials and agents, including corporate actors. At issue, however, are not only legal questions. As important are contemporary political conditions, in which the international criminal court is under sustained critique for a seeming bias against African leaders; and in which Western governments and populist movements are proposing new policies that violate refugee rights. 

Does the concept of Crimes against Humanity accurately capture the conditions of detention and practices of mass deportations? And, if there are international crimes committed, are these grave enough for the International Criminal Court to investigate? Can and should International Criminal Law shift its focus from instances of spectacular or radical evil to the normalised and ‘banal’ violence waged by Western states as a consequence of the structures of global inequality?

The discussion will follow the announcement and launch of a new major initiative by the Stanford International Human Rights Clinic and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN).

Speakers:

• Ms Diala Shamas, Supervising Attorney and Lecturer, Stanford Law School International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic
• Dr Cathryn Costello, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Professor in International Human Rights and Refugee Law, fellow of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford
• Professor Kevin Jon Heller, Professor of Criminal Law, SOAS, University of London
• Dr Ioannis Kalpouzos, Lecturer in Law, City Law School, City, University of London; Legal Action Committee, Global Legal Action Network
• Dr Itamar Mann, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Haifa; Legal Action Committee, Global Legal Action Network
• Mr Matthew Phillips, Co-Director, No Business in Abuse Campaign, GetUp!

Guests are invited to a wine reception at 7.30pm in the Great Hall Foyer