68 Azadeh Dastyari and Asher Hirsch impermissible consequence of exposure to risk.”65 The Executive Committee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR ExCom) agrees. In its 1997 Conclusions on Safeguarding Asylum, UNHCR Excom drew attention to the importance of the principle of refoulement and “the need to admit refugees into the territories of States, which includes no rejection at frontiers without fair and effective procedures for determining status and protection needs.”66 The UNHCR ExCom in its 1998 Conclusion reaffirmed this statement and again strongly deplored the refoulement of refugees.67 In addition, in its Protection Policy Paper on Maritime Interception Operations, the UNHCR noted in 2010 that “claims for international protection made by intercepted persons are in principle to be processed in procedures within the territory of the intercepting State.”68 The paper explains that interritory processing will generally be “the most practical means to provide access to reception facilities and to fair and efficient asylum procedures.���69 Arbitrary Detention Refoulement is not the only obligation that may be violated by Australia’s current policies. As explained earlier, all refugees who arrive in or are intercepted while attempting to enter Australia can be transferred to and detained in Australia’s extraterritorial detention facilities in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Detention in these two countries is mandatory for people whose claims are being processed. The Human Rights Committee has expressed the view that “detention should not continue beyond the period for which the State can provide appropriate justification,” and that the factors necessitating detention must be “particular to the individual.”70 The ongoing detention of refugees transferred to Nauru and Papua New Guinea does not comply with this requirement. All individuals are detained regardless of their age, gender, nationality, or any other characteristic. The detention, therefore, is not particular to the individual circumstances of each person. It is thus likely that mandatory detention in Australia’s extraterritorial centers violates the prohibition on arbitrary detention provided in Article 9(1) of the ICCPR. 65 Hathaway, The Rights of Refugees under International Law, p. 301. Conclusion No. 85: Conclusion on International Protection, Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme, U.N. Doc. A/53/12/Add.1 (October 9, 1998) (emphasis added). 67 Ibid. 68 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Protection Policy Paper: Maritime Interception Operations and the Processing of International Protection Claims (November 2010), www.unhcr .org/refworld/docid/4cd12d3a2.html. 69 Ibid. 70 United Nations Human Rights Committee No. 560/1993, A v. Australia, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/ 59/D/560/1993 (April 30, 1997), } 9.2. 66 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108914994 Published online by Cambridge University Press