The Australian Government should terminate its latest arrangement with the Republic of Nauru, which deflects Australia’s obligations to refugees under international law and will have real and significant consequences for stateless people in need of protection.
Keywords: Nauru, Australia, statelessness, refugees, offshore processing
Recent years have seen an increasing appetite by wealthy countries to outsource their obligations under the Refugee Convention to poorer nation states. Australia’s established practice of transferring refugees and people seeking asylum to the Pacific Islands of the Republic of Nauru and Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, has been heralded by countries such as England and Denmark as providing a blueprint for similar schemes.
Little consideration has been given in the Australian context, however, to the unique protection needs of stateless refugees within the government’s jurisdiction. The most recent agreement to reinstate third country resettlement arrangements with Nauru is the latest iteration of a decades long campaign by Australia to deflect its obligations to refugees under international law and will have real and significant consequences for stateless people in need of protection.
What is statelessness?
To be stateless means that a person is not recognised as legally belonging to any country. Stateless people have no nationality, meaning they can struggle to access even the most basic human rights many of us take for granted such as access to education, healthcare, the ability to work and move freely within and between borders. Statelessness as a phenomenon is not new—indeed it is as old as the concept of the nation-state itself. Under the current nation-state world order, where the nation-state is the main political entity, rights are afforded through one’s nationality (or citizenship). Who is deemed to be a national (or citizen) is within the sovereign power of the state. In many countries, nationality operates as the ‘building block’ upon which all other rights sit. Without it, people are often considered ‘legally invisible’ by the state, despite having deep and often historic links to their community and place of origin.
By virtue of the different citizenship laws around the world, some people are born stateless, while others become stateless during their lifetime. While the genesis of a person’s statelessness varies, the dominant cause is usually discrimination by the state, often on the grounds of gender, race, ethnicity or religion. Millions of people are estimated to be denied a nationality globally. One third of the world’s stateless population are understood to be children
Statelessness in the Asia Pacific
The Asia Pacific region is host to the majority of the world’s stateless population; an estimated 58 percent of the global total. Unlike Europe, the Americas and Africa, the Asia Pacific lacks a regional human rights framework protecting an individual’s right to a nationality. Ratification of the two key Statelessness Conventions (the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness) is low and inconsistent across the region’s 45 countries.
The Rohingya account for approximately 70 percent of the Asia Pacific’s statelessness population, with many seeking asylum across the region, including in Australia, particularly over recent years. The Rohingya people, a predominantly Muslim minority residing in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, are internationally recognised as one of the largest and most severely persecuted populations in the world. Their statelessness is entrenched in decades of persecution and rooted in Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law (Myanmar Citizenship Law), which systematically excludes the Rohingya from the list of officially recognised ethnic groups, thereby denying them access to nationality and associated rights. This legal exclusion has been compounded by decades of state-sponsored discrimination, displacement, and violence, culminating in mass atrocities, ethnic cleansing and forced migration, particularly since 2017.
Statelessness in Australia
There are many stateless people in Australia, including Rohingya, however determining exact numbers is challenging given Australia lacks a formal procedure for identifying stateless people within its territory, such as a ‘Stateless Determination Procedure’ (SDP). The most recent UNHCR Global Trends Report identified 7,503 stateless people in Australia for 2025 but stressed that, given Australia lacks a formal SDP, this figure cannot be considered accurate or exact. The true number is likely to be considerably higher, with the first comprehensive study of statelessness in Australia to be published by the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness in mid-2026.
Although statelessness and refugee status can overlap, they are distinct legal concepts. Many stateless people in Australia are also refugees under domestic immigration law and are currently subject to (or have historically been subjected to) Australia’s ‘offshore processing’ and resettlement arrangements.
Australia’s policy of detaining asylum seekers offshore
Australia has been forcibly transferring people who arrive within its territory seeking asylum by boat to Nauru and Manus Island since 2001, pausing the processing briefly in 2008 before resuming it again in 2012. ‘Offshore processing’ is a key feature of Australia’s punitive migration policy framework for ‘boat arrivals,’ aimed to deter people from seeking asylum through unregulated migration channels. Offshore processing operates alongside Australia’s bi-partisan policies of mandatory immigration detention and ‘boat turn-backs.’
In August 2025 a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Australian and Nauruan governments, establishing the terms of the latest iteration of the asylum seeker resettlement arrangement between the two countries. The MOU has not been made public, raising concerns about transparency and its compliance with Australia’s domestic and international human rights obligations. The Australian government has since revealed the transfer arrangement, worth $408 million AUD in upfront costs, is forecast to cost Australian taxpayers an estimated $2.5 billion AUD over the next 30 years.
It is understandable perhaps, why a financial arrangement might appeal to a low income country like Nauru, which, following the aftermath of a phosphate mining boom in the 1970s and 1980s currently has the worst human development indicators and highest rates of food poverty in the Asia-Pacific region. The latest payments are in addition to the more than $6.2 billion AUD previously spent by Australia to fund the offshore arrangements with Nauru between mid-2012 and early 2025. Allegations of suspicious financial activity concerning Australian government payments by members of the Nauruan government indicative of ‘money laundering and corruption’ have been widely documented. According to experts, it’s been hard to gauge how much Australia’s financial payments have meaningfully translated into higher living standards for ordinary Nauruans.
The release of people, including stateless people, from immigration detention in 2023
The resumption of offshore processing by Australia is an attempt to resolve what has essentially become a domestic political problem for the Labor government following a landmark court ruling. In November 2023 the High Court of Australia overturned almost two decades of legal precedent regarding the legality of indefinite immigration detention, ordering the immediate release of a stateless refugee, known as ‘NZYQ’, from detention where he had been held for more than five years. He, along with hundreds of others, remain living in the community under community detention orders or on short-term temporary visas.
The so called ‘NZYQ cohort;’ a group of 354 noncitizens (including stateless persons) had been placed into immigration detention after having their visas cancelled on ‘character grounds’—some were convicted of crimes (and had already served their sentence)—but were unable to be returned to their countries of origin due to the risk of persecution by virtue of statelessness or because the identified countries refused to accept them. Following the High Court decision they were released into the Australian community, creating a political ‘headache’ for the government keenly focused on controlling who comes to Australia, and who gets to stay.
The flaws in Australia’s migration system for stateless people
The sudden release of hundreds of non-citizens from detention highlighted the flaws in Australia’s current migration framework, particularly for stateless people. Australia lacks a distinct visa category for stateless people or pathway to permanent residency (something the Australian government could address relatively easily through a legislative instrument or regulation). This means that, with the government unable to return stateless members of the NZYQ cohort to immigration detention, there was simply no legal pathway for them to remain in Australia. The Australian government was not willing to create a new legal pathway (i.e. visa) for them to settle in the Australian community. Ultimately, no country in the world recognises them as legally belonging. With no country to be returned to, and no pathway to permanency in Australia, they are, within the current system, condemned to a life of limbo.
The government initially adopted a series of punitive measures designed to track and control members of this cohort in the community, including subjecting them to ankle monitoring bracelets and curfews. Following subsequent failed attempts to find legal work-arounds of the NZYQ judgement in order to re-detain people in Australian facilities and attempts to amend legislation to increase deportation powers, the Australian government fell back onto their previous practice of outsourcing the ‘problem,’ rather than resolving matters on Australian soil, by arranging for them to be sent to Nauru.
Denmark and the UK look to adopt similar programs
Australia’s offshore processing regime has provided inspiration for other nations seeking to externalise their refugee processing regimes including Denmark. In 2021, Denmark passed legislation allowing it to send asylum seekers to third countries for immigration processing, and in 2024 it led calls for other European Union member states to implement similar measures following a visit to the Australian detention centre on Nauru by its immigration minister. In April 2022 the UK government announced a plan to send certain asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing and resettlement. Former Australian Prime Minister and key architect of Australia’s offshore processing regime Tony Abbott actively encouraged senior members of the UK government and other European nations to adopt a similar approach to Australia. In November 2023 the UK Supreme Court ruled the UK–Rwanda arrangement unlawful under applicable regional human rights law. It was subsequently abandoned by the newly-elected government led by Keir Starmer in July 2024. Unlike the UK however, Australia lacks a governing human rights framework, such as a Human Rights Act, to act as a safeguard and challenge these actions in the Courts.
The Australian practice of deterring and punishing people seeking asylum by boat should serve as a warning rather than a blueprint for other nations. Australia’s historical practice of removing refugees, including stateless people, to Nauru has been extremely harmful and deemed unlawful under international law. Between 19 July 2013 and 27 February 2017, 248 stateless people (including children) were transferred by the Australian government to Nauru. Conditions of detention raised serious human rights concerns and were repeatedly condemned by the United Nations. A 2019 independent inquiry by the Australian Human Rights Commission found that Nauru was not an appropriate place to send families with young children. Numerous concerning incidents were further documented in a 2015 independent Senate Review into conditions at the Regional Processing Centre in Nauru, including alarmingly high instances of sexual harassment of children and women and minors engaging in self-harm. There is no reason to be assured this may not happen again.
The renewed arrangement to send refugees in the Australian government’s jurisdiction is particularly concerning given the complete absence of international or domestic legal protections for stateless people in Nauru. The Republic of Nauru is not a signatory to either of the two key Statelessness Conventions or other relevant core human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.
In the absence of agreeing to binding international obligations specific to statelessness, there are no guaranteed safeguards in place for the recognition, protection or resolution of statelessness in Nauru. This will have real and significant implications for stateless people sent offshore. Stateless people transferred to Nauru are likely to face prolonged limbo concerning their legal status, and their lack of access to identity documentation and are therefore likely to be excluded from pathways to durable solutions including naturalisation.
While refugees may have their status formally assessed and protected under Nauruan law, stateless people face the genuine risk of being marginalised indefinitely without legal recognition or recourse. This raises serious concerns under international human rights law.
Of further concern is the arrangement for Nauru to issue 30-year residence visas to people transferred to the Island nation by the Australian government. In September 2025 Nauruan President David Adeag stated that the ‘long term goal’ for people removed to Nauru ‘remains the eventual repatriation of these individuals to their home countries’. Stateless people, by definition, have no ‘home country’ to return to, making this proposed repatriation unfeasible and dangerous. Furthermore, repatriation’ of stateless people, as well as refugees, raises serious concerns under international law, including the fundamental principle of non-refoulment, that nobody should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm.
Beyond the political spin, the Nauruan President’s comments regarding ‘repatriation’ are perhaps a telling insight into the cynicism with which both nations view the long-term durability of the latest MOU, suggesting it is a mutually beneficial agreement for this point in time. For Australia, the MOU is essentially a way to make a current political problem ‘go away,’ following numerous failed attempts to work around the High Court’s NZYQ ruling. For Nauru, the MOU provides further and much needed external funding from its wealthy regional neighbour.
Conclusion
The Australian Government should terminate its latest arrangement with the Republic of Nauru. Refugees and stateless people in the Australian government’s jurisdiction should instead be provided with permanent and durable pathways to naturalisation in Australia, with visas specifically designed for stateless persons. While the exorbitantly expensive current arrangement remains in place, however, refugees—including stateless people—will be considered as mere collateral to the bigger economic and political motivations at play between the two nations.
Image: The interior of accommodation at the Narau offshore processing facility, 2012. Credit: DIAC Images/Wiki Commons.
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