Chapter 4 CHAPTER 4 Asylum Trends 16 million new asylum-seekers in the last decade Governments or UNHCR determine whether to confer refugee status through a process called Refugee Status Determination (RSD). The determination – made on the basis of international, regional or national law – represents a crucial step in ensuring refugees receive protection and long-lasting solutions, whether that means repatriation, building new lives in their host communities or resettlement in third countries. Asylum applications are on the rise. Between 2010 and 2019, States or UNHCR registered more than 16.2 million individual asylum applications globally, an estimated 88 per cent of them at the first instance49 and the remainder at the second instance, including with courts or other appellate 49 The data for some countries may include a significant number of repeat claims, i.e. the applicant has submitted at least one previous application in the same or another country. 36 bodies.50 Two-thirds of these asylum-seekers registered their claims in the last five years. In 2019, two million new asylum applications were registered, making up 14 per cent of the total for the entire decade.51 In the last decade, roughly five million individuals received refugee or other protected status in 183 countries or territories as a result of their asylum claim, and about 15 million more people received refugee or temporary protection status through group procedures – for a total of 20 million people. 50 Statistical information on outcomes of asylum appeals and court proceedings is under-reported in UNHCR’s statistics, particularly in industrialized countries, because this type of data is often either not collected by States or not published. 51 As some countries have not yet released all of their national asylum data at the time of writing, this figure is likely to be revised later this year. UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2019