research, advocacy and awareness raising experience and expertise of the co-submitting organisations and their partners. Among other resources, it draws extensively on two publications commissioned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: Professor Abe Kohki’s report Overview of Statelessness: International and Japanese Context published in April 2010, 4 and Professor Osamu Arakaki’s report Statelessness Conventions and Japanese Laws: Convergence and Divergence published in March 2015.5 Universal Periodic Review of Japan under the First and Second cycle 5. Japan was first subjected to the UPR on at Session 8 of the First Cycle (in 2008), and subsequently at Session 22 of the Second Cycle of the UPR (in 2012). 6. Despite various ongoing concerns regarding the right to a nationality and the human rights of stateless persons in Japan, it did not receive recommendations that directly related to statelessness or the right to a nationality in the first session. 7. Various recommendations were however made during the first session relevant to a child’s right to a nationality, the reduction and prevention of statelessness, the identification and protection of stateless persons in Japan and risks that stateless persons and persons at risk of statelessness face with respect to arbitrary and indefinite detention. These included ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, addressing discrimination against persons of non-Japanese ethnicity, migrants and women from minority groups, combatting human trafficking, monitoring of immigration detention, providing legal aid to migrants, establishing an independent body to review asylum applications and involving civil society in the follow-up to the UPR process at the national level. First Cycle Recommendation 60.1. Consider ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Mexico); the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (Peru); recognize the competence of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to receive and consider individual 4 5 Response of Japan ‘Japan will consider concluding the human rights treaties listed in subparagraph 1 except for the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, issuing “standing invitation” mentioned in subparagraph 4 (The date/duration of the visit will be arranged at the working level) and the possibility to permit The publication can be accessed here, http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4c344c252.pdf The publication can be accessed here, http://www.unhcr.or.jp/html/protect/pdf/Statelessness_Conventions_and_Japanese_Laws_EN.pdf 3