Australia currently holds or has contracted other countries to hold 3,052 people in immigration detention, including 50 children in Nauru (data from end March 2016). Most are from developing countries, including Iran, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, China and Afghanistan. The Global Detention Project is a Geneva-based non-government organisation formed in 2014 to investigate the use of immigration detention as a response to global migration. The Development Policy Centre’s Associate Director spoke with its Executive Director, Michael Flynn, shortly before the 14 June 2016 launch of the project’s new website and online database at the UN’S Geneva headquarters. Timed to coincide with a meeting of the Human Rights Council, the launch was based on a case study of Australia and its neighbours. Michael Flynn talks about the origins of the Global Detention Project and its plans for the future, Australia’s immigration detention policies and practices in a global context, and the role of international organisations in connection with immigration detention.

Michael Flynn holds a BA in Philosophy from DePaul University in the United States and an MA and PhD in International Studies from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He previously worked as a project director at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC; as a project coordinator at the Graduate Institute’s Programme for the Study of Global Migration; and as an associate editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. His research has been supported by the Swiss Network for International Studies, the Geneva International Academic Network, the Pew International Journalism Program, and the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Blog available here: http://devpolicy.org/everybody-needs-good-neighbours-australias-immigration-detention-policies-global-context-20160614

Full transcript available here: http://devpolicy.org/pdf/blog/Transcript_interview-with-Michael-Flynn-27May2016.pdf

The Global Detention Project’s country profiles and other publications are at www.globaldetentionproject.org.

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