The Australian government violated a human rights treaty by detaining a group of asylum seekers, many of them minors, on the remote Pacific island of Nauru, even after they were granted refugee status, a United Nations watchdog has ruled.

Australia violated the rights of asylum seekers arbitrarily detained on the island of Nauru, a UN watchdog ruled Thursday, in a warning to other countries intent on outsourcing asylum processing.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has ruled that Australia breached international human rights law by detaining a group of young asylum seekers in immigration detention in Nauru. The committee found the asylum seekers were subject to prison-like conditions,