The proposed Australian law, the foreign fighters bill, will be introduced into parliament on Wednesday

The federal government’s intention to make it a crime for Australians to travel to “no-go zones” appears to be unprecedented among western democracies, according to terrorism experts, with countries such as Britain, Canada and France choosing not to go that far.



In the UK, the prime minister, David Cameron, recently unveiled a package of new anti-terrorism measures to counter the threat of British citizens fighting with Islamic State (Isis) and returning home to potentially plan domestic attacks.

But he rejected a suggestion from the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to criminalise travel to certain countries or change the standard of proof when Britons travel to Iraq or Syria.

“The government is clear that it would be wrong to deal with the gap by fundamentally changing core principles of our criminal justice system.”

The proposed Australian law, the foreign fighters bill, will be introduced into parliament on Wednesday. The attorney general, George Brandis, said on Monday that it would “enable the minister for foreign affairs to declare that a particular locality shall be in effect a no-go zone, so that there’ll be prohibition on Australians travelling there and if an Australian travels there, then they would’ve committed an offence”.

Exemptions would include travelling for a legitimate purpose such as to provide humanitarian aid, visit a family member or work as a journalist.

Brandis said it did not amount to a reversal of the onus of proof because a prosecutor would have to prove that the person has visited the area. He also said that the law would be used “sparingly” and anticipated it would not apply to an entire country, but to an area controlled by militant groups such as Islamic State.

Labor has said it will wait to see the detail of the bill before deciding its position.

Western nations are grappling with what to do about their own radicalised youth traveling to fight with extremist groups and the threat they may pose when they return home. Cameron has said that as many as 500 British citizens were now fighting in Syria or northern Iraq.

Security agencies believe 60 Australians have travelled to Iraq and Syria to join groups including Islamic State and that 20 fighters have returned. France is now debating new laws to stop would-be jihadists from travelling to foreign battlefields, but is not proposing to designate entire areas or countries “no-go zones”.

It is a crime in many countries including Australia to enter a foreign country to engage in “hostile activity”. Cancelling passports is also being increasingly used to deal with the risk of foreign fighters.

But Professor George Williams, who is conducting a five-year study of international terrorism laws, knows of no other country to criminalise travel to a country or part of a country without authorities having to show that the intention for the travel was terrorism-related.

“It would not surprise me, because Australia has quite a striking record of enacting laws that go considerably further than comparable countries,” he said.

Williams, who is the Anthony Mason professor of law at the University of NSW, agrees that it should be a crime to fight in conflicts in places such as northern Iraq and Syria, but “making it an offence to travel to those places unless you can demonstrate a reason is problematic … it’s an overreach. It demonstrates a too-ready willingness to go beyond what is needed and to introduce measures that are not consistent with Australia’s basic democratic values.”

Professor Kent Roach, an expert in international terrorism laws at the University of Toronto, told Guardian Australia that Australia’s approach “sounds novel to me”.

”In Canada we created new criminal offences last year to leave the country with the intent to participate in a terrorist group or to facilitate terrorist activity. I have to say the Canadian approach strikes me as more targeted than creating no-go areas. I would guess that [it] is really an attempt to avoid having to prove an intent to engage in terrorism.”

But Professor Greg Barton, acting director of the Centre for Islam and the Modern World at Monash University, supported “no-go zones”.

“We’ve never seen anything like this. It’s a unique situation to have IS control territory, and drawing in foreign fighters. I think it’s reasonable [although] the detail is important and the application is important.

“With existing legislation, you have to provide evidence that they were there and were fighting with a militia. That’s hard to do. The simple way around that is to introduce this new legislation which means that if someone has been to areas controlled by IS that in itself becomes an offence and hopefully it encourages people not to go there.”

Tony Abbott leaves Australia on Tuesday for United Nations talks in New York focused on the Islamic State foreign fighter issue. Abbott will address the Security Council and support a US-drafted resolution that will mandate a global crackdown on foreign fighters.

It would mandate that UN member states pass laws to prevent the travel, funding and recruitment of Isis supporters.