The deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division says Australia should accept all refugees in Nauru onto its shores.
The Australian-run detention programme on Nauru has come under fire after reports of mistreatment of refugees both in and outside the camp and a continuing media blackout.
Human Rights Watch's Phil Robertson. Photo: Human Rights Watch
Phil Robertson says housing asylum-seekers and refugees on Nauru was never going to work and it needs to end.
Mr Robertson says third-party resettlement deals with countries like Nauru and Cambodia are ridiculous.
"As a ratifying state of the refugee convention it has obligations and this whole idea of somehow paying poorer countries to take on Australia's refugee burden is both shameful and outrageous and I think it needs to end."