A status of forces agreement (SOFA) is an agreement between a host country and a foreign nation stationing military forces in that country. SOFAs are often included, along with other types of military agreements, as part of a comprehensive security arrangement. A SOFA does not constitute a security arrangement; it establishes the rights and privileges of foreign personnel present in a host country in support of the larger security arrangement. Under international law a status of forces agreement differs from

military occupation Military occupation, also called belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is temporary hostile control exerted by a ruling power's military apparatus over a sovereign territory that is outside of the legal boundaries of that ruling pow ...

Agreements

While the United States military has the largest foreign presence and therefore accounts for most SOFAs, the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

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Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

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Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

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, and many other nations also station military forces abroad and negotiate SOFAs with their host countries. In the past, the

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had SOFAs with most of its

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s. While most of the United States' SOFAs are public, some remain classified.

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has its own procedure that stems from "a peacetime agreement originally signed in 1951" for SOFAs between member states.

Terms of operation

A SOFA is intended to clarify the terms under which the foreign military is allowed to operate. Typically, purely military operational issues such as the locations of bases and access to facilities are covered by separate agreements. A SOFA is more concerned with the legal issues associated with military individuals and property. This may include issues such as entry and exit into the country, tax liabilities, postal services, or employment terms for host-country nationals, but the most contentious issues are civil and criminal jurisdiction over bases and personnel. For civil matters, SOFAs provide for how civil damages caused by the forces will be determined and paid. Criminal issues vary, but the typical provision in U.S. SOFAs is that U.S. courts will have jurisdiction over crimes committed either by a service member against another service member or by a service member as part of his or her military duty, but the host nation retains jurisdiction over other crimes.

Host nation concerns

In many host nations, especially those with a large foreign military presence such as South Korea and Japan, the SOFA can become a major political issue following crimes allegedly committed by service members. This is especially true when the incidents involve crimes such as robbery, murder, manslaughter or sex crimes, especially when the charge is defined differently in the two nations. For example, in 2002 in South Korea, a U.S. military AVLB bridge-laying vehicle on the way to the base camp after a training exercise accidentally killed two girls. Under the SOFA, a United States military court martial tried the soldiers involved. The panel found the act to be an accident and acquitted the service members of negligent homicide, citing no criminal intent or

negligence Negligence ( Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate care expected to be exercised in similar circumstances. Within the scope of tort law, negligence pertains to harm caused by the violation of a duty of care through a neg ...

. The U.S. military accepted responsibility for the incident and paid civil damages. This resulted in widespread outrage in South Korea, demands that the soldiers be retried in a South Korean court, the airing of a wide variety of conspiracy theories, and a backlash against the local expatriate community. , American military authorities were allowing South Korea to charge and prosecute American soldiers in South Korean courts. Two U.S, soldiers were accused of rapes in separate incidents in October 2011, prompting the imposition of a peninsula-wide curfew for U.S. troops. A U.S. soldier was alleged to have committed arson in a bar in Seoul in November 2011, and another soldier was sentenced to three years in prison in June 2012 by a

Daegu Daegu (; ), formerly spelled Taegu and officially Daegu Metropolitan City (), is a city in southeastern South Korea. It is the third-largest urban agglomeration in South Korea after Seoul and Busan; the fourth-largest List of provincial-level ci ...

district court after being convicted of rape. Also in November 2011, a

Uijeongbu Uijeongbu (; ) is a Administrative divisions of South Korea, city in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. It is the tenth-most populous city in the province and a suburb of Seoul within the greater Seoul Metropolitan Area. History Uijeongbu was estab ...

district court sentenced a soldier who had been caught on camera committing an exceptionally brutal rape to ten years in prison. That same court had earlier sentenced a Korean man to less than four years in prison for the rape of a female U.S. soldier, but the disparity was explained as being due to the level of violence in the rape by the U.S. soldier. On review, the three-year sentence was suspended and the ten year sentence was upheld. Criminal accusations against off-duty service members are generally considered subject to local jurisdiction, depending on specific provisions of the SOFA. However, details of these provisions can still prompt issues. In Japan, for example, the SOFA includes the requirement that service members are not turned over to the local authorities until they are charged in court. In a number of cases, local officials have complained that this impedes their ability to question suspects and investigate the crime. American officials allege that the Japanese police use coercive interrogation tactics and are concerned more with attaining a high conviction rate than finding "justice". American authorities also note the difference in police investigation powers, as well as the judiciary. No lawyer can be present in investigation discussions in Japan, though a translator is provided, and no mention made of an equivalent to America's Miranda rights. Another issue is the lack of jury trials in Japan, previous to 2009 all trials were decided by a judge or panel of judges. Currently, Japan uses a

lay judge A lay judge, sometimes called a lay assessor (law), assessor, is a person assisting a judge in a trial. Lay judges are used in some civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions. Lay judges are appointed volunteers and often require some legal ...

system in some criminal trials. For these reasons American authorities insist that service members be tried in military tribunals and reject article 98 of the

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy on 17 July 1998Michael P. Scharf (August 1998)''Results of the R ...

Political issues

The political issue of SOFAs is complicated by the fact that many host countries have mixed feelings about foreign bases on their soil, and demands to renegotiate the SOFA are often combined with calls for foreign troops to leave entirely. Issues of different national customs can arise – while the U.S. and host countries generally agree on what constitutes a crime, many U.S. observers feel that host country justice systems grant a much weaker set of protections to the accused than the U.S. and that the host country's courts can be subject to popular pressure to deliver a guilty verdict; furthermore, that American service members ordered to a foreign posting should not be forced to give up the rights they are afforded under the Bill of Rights. On the other hand, host country observers, having no local counterpart to the Bill of Rights, often feel that this is an irrelevant excuse for demanding special treatment, and resembles the extraterritorial agreements demanded by Western countries during colonialism. One host country where such sentiment is widespread, South Korea, itself has forces in

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir Mountains, Pamir mountain ranges. Bishkek is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Kyrgyzstan, largest city. Kyrgyz ...

and has negotiated a SOFA that confers total immunity to its service members from prosecution by Kyrgyz authorities for any crime whatsoever, something far in excess of the privileges many South Koreans object to in their nation's SOFA with the United States.

Visiting forces agreement

A visiting forces agreement is similar to a status of forces agreement except the former covers only forces temporarily in a country, not based there.

References

External links

* "''Backgrounder

A summary of U.S. foreign policy issues''". United States Embassy, April 1996. * "

Free Association between the United States and the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands''". Joint Committee on Compact Economic Negotiations. (archived fro

on 2009-03-27) * "

'" signed prior to the deployment of Operation Astute in

East Timor Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the coastal exclave of Oecusse in the island's northwest, and ...

in May 2006. This reference also includes SOFAs signed in 2002 between

and the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

and between East Timor and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

.
US-ROK Status of Forces Agreement
(archived fro

on 2005-06-07)

:* (Entered into force, June 23, 1960)

White House: Iraq Status of Forces Agreement
(archived fro
the original
on 2010-05-27)
GIS AND KOREANS: THE MAKING OF THE FIRST ROK-US STATUS OF FORCES AGREEMENT, 1945–1966
Bo Ram Yi (2006) * {{cite web , url=http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/agree0009.html , title=Special measures in effect 2001–2006 , publisher= Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan Military alliances