“Best Interests of the Child”, Australian Refugee Policy, and the (Im)possibilities of International Solidarity

“Best interests of the child” is a key concept in international law, developed by and through institutions which maintain a stake in international solidarity. This article explores the quality of that solidarity, working to understand the modes of interrelationship between peoples and institutions which it instantiates, and which it could possibly be imagined to instantiate. Focusing on one context—the way that “best interests of the child” has developed within international politics and domestic Australian politics, through an examination of the discourses produced by policy-makers working within child refugee and asylum-seeker realms—this article examines the ways that this concept has relied on, and produced, racialized hierarchical ideas of what “best interests” entails. Looking through a history of Australian settler-colonial governmentality, this article explores the tensions between discourses of security and discourses of “best interests of the child,” historicizing the figure of the refugee child and reimagining the relationships of dependency and solidarity which could be produced.