FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — Australia’s High Court has thrown a legal spanner into the works of efforts to find a Southeast Asian solution to people smuggling. The court ruled Thursday that Canberra can’t transfer asylum seekers to Malaysia for processing because the country isn’t a UN signatory on the treatment of refugees, while Australia is.

The decision throws into doubt Australia’s ability to ring fence asylum seekers while their claims are being processed on Manus Islands in Papua New Guinea, and possibly Nauru. Read more in The Diplomat.