DESK REVIEW ON POPULATIONS AT RISK OF STATELESSNESS Certificate of Eligibility (CoE):224 • The CoE is issued by the Ministry of Justice in Japan free of charge, and generally takes up to three months to process. • Application for the CoE must be filed with a regional Immigration Bureau in Japan. • The CoE serves as evidence that the foreign national meets the conditions for landing in Japan. • A visa application can be made to the relevant Embassy or Consulate without a CoE, but would require a large number of verifying documents and the processing would be longer as the visa application documents would have to be sent to the Ministry of Justice via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan for examination. The Philippines requires applications made without a CoE to be filed only through accredited travel agencies or registered Nikkeijin agencies. C.9. Statelessness in Japan Japan is not a State Party to the 1954 Statelessness Convention nor is it a State Party to the 1961 Statelessness Convention. There is no provision in Japanese domestic law that defines statelessness, there is no specific procedure for determining statelessness status, and there is no procedure established for the protection of stateless persons. Yet, some existing laws assume that an individual may be stateless, and determination of nationality or statelessness is a criteria that can impact the decisions and procedures of government agencies. Though it is inconsistent and somewhat ad hoc, “nationality and statelessness determinations are conducted in practice.”225 In practice, some persons have “stateless” written in the space provided for nationality on official documents,226 but this cannot be said to be based on a definitive determination, but is rather the result of this more ad hoc and inconsistent determination in each individual case.227 To see the current application form for a Certificate of Eligibility associated with the application of second, third, or fourth generation Nikkeijin, refer to the Immigration Bureau website at: http://www.moj.go.jp/content/001290114.pdf. 224 UNHCR, Typology of Stateless Persons in Japan, December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/ docid/5bb618b74.html. 225 For example, statistics on the number of resident foreigners include the nationality written on foreigner residence cards or special permanent resident certificates issued in Japan, and records 687 persons registered as “stateless” (無国籍 [“mukokuseki”]) among the “total number of resident foreigners,” as of June 2019. Japan, Ministry of Justice, 在留外国人統計 (“Zairyu Gaikokujin Tokei” [Foreign Resident Statistics]), June 2019 (published in December 2019), available at: https://www.estat.go.jp/stat-search/files?page=1&layout=datalist&toukei=00250012&tstat=000001018034&cycle=1&year=20190&month=120 40606&tclass1=000001060399&stat_infid=000031886381&result_back=1&cycle_facet=cycle). The statistic does not include stateless persons without residency permits, and also cannot be said to be based upon a determination, but rather is the result of a more ad hoc and inconsistent practice. 226 UNHCR, Typology of Stateless Persons in Japan, December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/ docid/5bb618b74.html. 227 74 UNHCR / April 2021