Australia's treatment of asylum seekers is dismantling global humanitarian commitments which grew from the darkness of the holocaust, former high court judge Michael Kirby has warned.
Australians must remember the charters and laws, which push nations to accept refugees, were established because European states did not take in those fleeing Nazi Germany, Justice Kirby says.
Their actions condemned countless lives to the concentration camps in the months and years that followed.
"These stories teach us the obligations of ordinary humanity to people who are in peril," he told the crowd at a book launch for human rights law lecturer Daniel Ghezelbash.
Dr Ghezelbash's book says Australia modelled many asylum policies on the United States - particularly off-shore processing, push-back operations and mandatory detention.
But Justice Kirby said the Australian constitution, unlike that of the United States, does not enshrine human rights.
The result is that lawyers who seek to help asylum seekers have few "quivers for their bow"," Justice Kirby said.
Now the rest of the world, particularly Europe, is looking to emulate Australia's uncompromising policies to cope with their waves of undocumented migration, the book argues.
"We have become a model not for a good law but for a cruel and harsh law," Justice Kirby said.
"(Other countries) think we have got something to tell them on how to turn back the boats or to turn back the trucks."
"And this is going to lead to a falling away of the key elements of the asylum principals."
Dr Ghezelbash's book warns Europe is one of the final bastions of asylum but the global consensus to help the helpless could be lost, in part because of Australia.
Justice Kirby said he hopes the book serves as a "reminder of where we have come from, where we were, and where we seem to be going".
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