### Chapter 5. Promotion of Prompt and Appropriate Refugee Protection

## Section 1 ☐ Promotion of Prompt and Appropriate Processing of Applications

In July 2010, in order to stabilize as quickly as possible the legal status of those foreign nationals who ought to be recognized as refugees, the Immigration Bureau set six months as the standard time for the processing of one refugee application and aimed to achieve by the end of March 2011 the processing of all applications, in principle, within this timeframe. In addition, the Immigration Bureau made the decision to announce on a quarterly basis the average processing (examination) time for refugee applications on the Ministry of Justice website.

The average time required for the processing (examination) of an application was within six months for every quarter of FY 2012.

In addition, following a proposal received from the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA) to establish a data center for information on the countries of origin of the refugees and to provide better materials to enable applicants to be able to browse and use them, the Immigration Bureau has been posting information concerning the countries of origin of the refugees and international affairs (specifically, Japanese translations of reports of the United Kingdom Home Office and the United States Department of State) on the Ministry of Justice website since November 2010, and endeavors to collect and prepare basic materials for information on the countries of origin.

Moreover, in order to develop refugee inquirers with advanced knowledge and investigative abilities, the Immigration Bureau has been making efforts to improve officer training with the cooperation of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In addition to the conventional officer training for refugee inquirers that has long been provided, practical three-day case study training by the UNHCR was introduced from FY 2010 and the short-term dispatch of officers to the regional offices of the UNHCR has been continuously implemented since FY 2011. In FY 2012, the Immigration Bureau sent its officials to the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva and the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in Sanremo, Italy for training.

## Section 2 ☐ Acceptance of Refugees through Resettlement to a Third Country

Resettlement to a third country is intended to transfer and resettle refugees, who have been evacuated from their countries of origins and who are temporarily taking shelter in a refugee camp in a neighboring country or some other place, to another country which agrees to accept such refugees from the countries where they were originally offered protection. Resettlement to a third country is deemed to be one of the permanent solutions for refugee problems, as well as “voluntary repatriation” and “resettlement in the first countries of asylum”.

The UNHCR encourages each country to accept refugees based on resettlement to a third country from the standpoint of having the international community properly share its duties in relation to refugee problems.

In the past Japan took measures to support the resettlement of those recognized as Indochinese refugees and other refugees, but in order to deal with the various problems relating to refugees in the Asian region,