Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he will not be pressured into publicly intervening in the Julian Assange extradition case, despite international law experts arguing that direct involvement by Australia would carry "significant" diplomatic sway.
The Biden administration is seeking to extradite the WikiLeaks co-founder to the United States to face hacking and espionage charges.
Mr Assange has been detained at the maximum-security Belmarsh Prison, east of London, since April 2019 but his time there may be drawing to an end, with British Home Secretary Priti Patel declaring on Friday she had approved the American extradition request.
Lawyers acting for Mr Assange, who is an Australian citizen, say they are working on an administrative appeal to that decision, and experts say even if it fails, there are further legal avenues to explore.
And while the Australian government is not a party to the British court process, international law expert Donald Rothwell, of the Australian National University's College of Law, said Canberra could have real influence, if it chose to wield it, to try to stop the extradition.
"Australia is clearly in a position to try to exercise significant diplomatic influence," Professor Rothwell told the ABC News Daily podcast.
Diplomacy behind the scenes
On Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters he would not publicly intervene to prevent Mr Assange's extradition. That was despite him saying in December, while he was the opposition leader, that he "did not see the point" of American authorities' "ongoing pursuit" of Mr Assange.
The Prime Minister said he had not changed his position since making those comments, and added on Monday that he would not be influenced by pressure from Twitter users either.
The ABC's 7.30 has reported that the federal government has raised the Australian citizen's plight behind the scenes with close allies, and senior ministers have said publicly they will not conduct diplomacy via "megaphone".
"I intend to lead a government that engages diplomatically and appropriately with our partners," Mr Albanese said at the Monday press conference in Melbourne.
Assange conviction would set precedent
Mr Assange has been in British custody since being expelled from the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2019.
His lawyers argue extraditing Mr Assange to the United States for the hacking and spying offences would be illegal under UK law, and a breach of his human rights.
Mr Assange is facing 18 separate charges in the United States over the publication of a range of highly classified information relating to the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Professor Rothwell says Mr Assange's prosecution under the US espionage act would set a major precedent.
"Importantly, it needs to be understood that what the United States allege is that Assange breached US law by the publication of material via WikiLeaks without actually physically entering the United States to obtain this material," he said.
"Any conviction on the basis of these charges would send out a very significant message to anyone involved, not only as a journalist or as a publisher, but also in relation to persons who come into possession of national security-classified information."
Prosecution 'could end tomorrow'
Mr Assange's WikiLeaks website was first launched in 2006, and it first gained international attention in 2008 with the release of classified information about procedures at the American military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Two years later, in 2010, WikiLeaks was in the spotlight again, after it published its Afghanistan and Iraq War files, assisted by whistleblower and former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
While Manning was convicted and jailed for hacking and spying offences in 2013, she was subsequently granted a pardon by then-US president Barack Obama in 2017.
But Professor Rothwell says there is no indication the US will show similar leniency to Mr Assange, either by dropping the charges or through the exercise of a pardon following any conviction.
"The Assange extradition matter could end tomorrow if the US Department of Justice seeks to drop the extradition request," he told ABC News Daily.
"There was some thought that the election of Joe Biden could see a change of direction by the United States in terms of its pursuit of Julian Assange, but there's no indication at all that [it] is not going to continue to pursue this matter."
"The Biden administration has really been no different to the Trump administration."
"Looking at the precedent of Chelsea Manning, there may well be a pardon or there may well be a political determination reached following a conviction being made, but once again we're looking at some period down the track here before we even reach that point."
One final appeal
Following the British Home Secretary announcement on Friday about the decision to extradite Mr Assange, the WikiLeaks co-founder's lawyers are now preparing an administrative appeal against her determination.
But even if that fails, Professor Rothwell says there remains another option: an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
That body, based in Strasbourg in France, recently blocked Ms Patel's decision to deport asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda.
Professor Rothwell says an appeal there could take months, if not years.
"That would really put a stay on Assange's extradition," he said.
"So we really need to see how that process could play out before the European Court of Human Rights, but it could in itself take a further number of years."
