Sofa Forces Agreement

Many personnel facilities and SOFA agreements, as well as other types of military agreements, are often part of an overall security agreement with a given country. A sofa itself is not a safety device; Rather, it defines the rights and privileges of U.S. personnel who are in a country to support the largest security agreement. SOFAs may, on the basis of powers, be enshrined in previous treaties and congressional actions or as executive agreements only. The United States is currently a party to more than 100 agreements that can be considered SAAs. A list of current agreements at the end of this report is arranged in the tables by source of underlying authority, if any, for each of the SOFAs. The deadly attacks on Afghan civilians reportedly raised questions from a U.S. military man about the status of the U.S.-Afghanistan Forces Agreement (SOFA), which would determine whether Afghan law would be applicable in these circumstances. SOFAs are multilateral or bilateral agreements that generally set out the framework within which U.S. military personnel operate in a foreign country and how domestic laws of foreign jurisdiction apply to U.S. personnel in that country. In Wilson v. Girard,76, the Supreme Court first considered the jurisdiction provisions contained in the administrative agreement.

. . .

Comments are closed.