Lev Lafayette wrote:
On Mon, December 16, 2013 7:44 am, Carl Turney wrote:
But logic dictates that a person who has traversed 5, 10, or 20 different countries and (when they arrive in Australia) suddenly declares "NOW I want to apply for asylum" does NOT have sanctuary as their PRIMARY motivation.
The UN Refugee Convention states that a person must seek asylum in the first safe country that they reach. By definition, countries which are not signatories are considered not safe, as they grant absolutely no legal protections to refugees.
Here is what the signatory map looks like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Refugeeconvention.PNG
As you can see there's a gaping hole between the Middle-East, the Indian subcontinent, SE Asia, to Australia.
Excellent rebuttal; thank you.