International Refugee Law in Crisis: Islands, Incarceration and Neo-Refoulement during COVID-19

Attempts by states to deter refugee movement have evolved to a point that routine and systematic breach of non-refoulement and associated human rights frequently constitutes a central pillar in their asylum architectures. The expansion of state policies and practices under which people seeking asylum are prevented from reaching safe places and lodging asylum claims has accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on examples from Australia and Europe, this article uses neo-refoulement—a concept introduced by geographers Jennifer Hyndman and Alison Mountz—to signal not only the rise in pushbacks at land and sea borders, but also practices that occur well within the boundaries of sovereign territory. These include the use of island incarceration, fast-track border procedures, and denial of legal presence on sovereign territory, even where physical presence is achieved. Such measures have often been introduced under the pretext of responding to situations of ‘mass influx’. And yet, far from providing an adequate response to a so-called ‘refugee crisis’, they serve only to facilitate a greater humanitarian crisis.