### 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 2013.

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.

Furthermore, we have been conducting enhanced training with the cooperation of the UNHCR for the purpose of training refugee inquirers with advanced knowledge and research capabilities. As well as the usual refugee inquirer training, we have also been implementing additional training on an ongoing basis such as a three-day practical training program using case studies since 2010 under the direction of the UNHCR, short-term officer dispatch to the UNHCR regional offices since 2011, and sending officers to participate in training at the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in Sanremo, Italy since 2012.

## Section 2 ☐ Acceptance of Refugees through Resettlement

Resettlement 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 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 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, Cabinet approval was given to the introduction of a system of resettlement (“Implementation of a Pilot Project for the Admission of Refugees through Resettlement”) on December 16, 2008.

The Cabinet approval and the “Specific Measures for Implementation of a Pilot Project for the Admission of Refugees through Resettlement” (decision of the Liaison and Coordination Council for Refugee