ABSTRACT

This chapter provides a historical background to refugee protection in Japan, describing asylum and refugee issues in the state before, during and after its accession to the Convention and Protocol in 1981. This background provides an insight into the factors that prompted the state to become a member of the international refugee regime. Further, the present domestic refugee protection system cannot be fully explained without examination of the annals of refugee events in Japan. Japan’s actions towards asylum seekers and refugees after the Second World War in particular impacted on the design of the domestic protection mechanism. The experiences and attitudes of the past have had a lasting effect on the administration, legislation and jurisprudence of refugee protection.