Even too Indonesia is not a party to the Geneva Convention 1951, but Indonesia has an

obligation to protect refugees from customary international law. The implementation of the

refugee protection is also given by the detention house in Riau. The legal problem in this

research is the role of UNHCR in providing protection for the refugee whom are residing in

detention house in Riau. The research methods used in this research is normative legal

research. Normative legal research focus on the positive legal norms in the form of

international legal intruments relating to the cases in this research. The search for provisions

of international law such as the Geneva Convention in 1951, The Protocol Of New York In

1967 and the statute of UNHCR. Based on this research to the conclusion is the UNHCR has

been fulfilling its role in protection of refugees in Indonesia. The existence of the role of

UNHCR for the refugees in Indonesia is to screen in and to screen out, where the refugees

were registered by UNHCR to set the status of a refugee or not. The role of the UNHCR to

find a third party for refugees. The government of Indonesia help the refugees with various

policies, such as a providing shelter, funds, and others. Although Indonesia has not acceded

to the Geneva Convention in 1951 and The Protocol of New york in 1967, but Indonesia has

been implementing the principle of Non Refoulment, thus indirectly Indonesia also applied

customary international law.