Bio
Naoko Hashimoto is (tenured) Associate Professor of international law at the Department of Politics and International Studies of International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo, Japan, teaching international refugee and migration law, public international law, international criminal law, and international institutions / organisation in English and in Japanese. She also serves as a “Refugee Adjudication/Examination Counselor” appointed by the Japanese Minister of Justice, reviewing asylum applications rejected at the first instance by the immigration authorities. Previously, Naoko taught Refugee and Forced Migration Studies in English at Hitotsubashi University (as a tenured faculty member), the University of Tokyo, and Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (as an adjunct professor). She often appears at national and international media such as NHK and CNN and contributes migration-related articles to Forbes as an official columnist.
Prior to moving to academia, Naoko worked as a national and international civil servant for UNHCR, IOM and the Government of Japan (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Justice) in New York, Geneva, northern Sri Lanka, and Tokyo for about 15 years. She holds a Master of Studies in Forced Migration, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford (as a Sir John Swire scholar), LLM in International Human Rights Law from University of London (International Programme convened by Queen Mary and UCL), and PhD in Politics from University of Sussex (as an International Fellow of Nippon Foundation). Her current research includes resettlement decision-making processes in Japan and South Korea; Afghan evacuations; international comparative analysis on subsidiary, temporary and complementary protection schemes; and global responsibility-sharing mechanisms through institutional theory, among others.
Publications/recent projects
- ‘Refugee Resettlement as an Alternative to Asylum’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, Vol. 37, Issue 2, March 2018, pp.162-186
- ‘Stratification of Rights and Entitlements among Refugees and Other Forced Migrants in Japan’, in S. Takahashi and A. Kihara-Hunt (eds.) Civil and Political Rights in Japan: Tribute to Sir Nigel Rodley, London: Routledge (forthcoming in March 2019)
- Migration Policies in Asia, London: Sage (forthcoming in 2019) (four volumes of compilation of outstanding articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals, to be edited with other nine scholars)