Border securitization and human security

This chapter considers human security in the context of mobility rights, and assesses the utility of the concept of human security and its application in the context of transnational border-crossing realities of migrants in precarious situations. In particular, we consider its efficacy in relation to the crisis in asylum in the Global North—that is, the actual or perceived condition that developed nations are unable or unwilling to guarantee individual rights and deliver on obligations of refugee protection. Countries of the Global North individually and collectively have sought to limit access to individual rights-based claims of asylum. In the case of Australia, this has been recently most notable in the ways in which rights to asylum have been diminished through a focus on people smuggling. Specifically we are concerned with how the concept of human security may offer a way forward in the context of what often appear as impasses between the discourses of human rights, legal processes, and broad public opinion. This chapter first briefly considers the concept of human security, and then explores the development of the securitization of borders in the Global North and the impact on asylum and the facilitation of asylum. It examines two case studies: policies of nonentry for asylum seekers and the detention of Indonesian minors who have crewed asylum seeker boats. Considering these case studies, the chapter then returns to explore the function of human security in transforming debates around asylum in the Global North.