Sovereign power at the border

This article deals with the exceptional regimes in place for dealing with asylum seekers intercepted at Australia's borders. These regimes are largely ungoverned by statute and, their implementation is, therefore, almost ungovernable by the courts. The situation is clearly one which impacts adversely on asylum seekers, but this article ends by arguing that embedded in our lived out view of the appropriate exercise of sovereign power at and beyond our border are unsettling implications about its appropriate exercise within.