Republic of Korea

Strengthening the National Capacity for Protecting Refugees; As the first Asian country to enact a stand-alone refugee act in 2013, Korea has made continuous efforts to support the capacity building of its institutions and workforce for refugee status determination (RSD). To this end, the ROK government established a refugee division tasked with addressing refugee-related issues under the Ministry of Justice in 2013. Also, an independent refugee division dedicated to RSD was established under the Seoul Immigration Office in 2016. The ROK government has also made continuous efforts to increase its workforce to strengthen Korea’s refugee protection capacity and relevant infrastructure. The number of RSD officers increased to 91 as of July 2019, a huge increase from 8 when the Refugee Act was enacted.  The ROK government will continue to put effort into increasing its expertise on RSD by various means such as establishing a division dedicated to appeals.