Weaponizing ecocide: Nauru, offshore incarceration, and environmental Crisis

Abstract

The Pacific Solution (2001-2008) and Operation Sovereign Borders (2012-present) expanded Australia’s territorial and juridical borders through the establishment of three offshore regional processing centers in the Pacific nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea (Manus Island) and on Christmas Island (an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean). On Nauru, over two thousand asylum seekers and refugees were detained indefinitely in camps and temporary accommodations while resettlement claims were processed in Australia (Australian Border Force 2019; Phillips 2012). The offshoring of human detention constitutes one trajectory of Australia’s neocolonial operation across the Pacific region, a role that unfolds from a legacy of Commonwealth-driven extractive colonialism through the decimation of natural resources.