28
document which delineates the legal rights and responsibilities of the host nation versus
those of the foreign military forces. According to an official briefing by the U.S. SOFA
Secretariat in South Korea, the SOFA is an international agreement between military
allies that “defines our legal rights and obligations while serving in a foreign country,
provides facilities and land for military use, balances our basic rights with host nation
law, and ensures a supportive environment for our military forces, essential to ensure a
basic quality of life.”
47
One of the major purposes of such documents from the U.S.
perspective is to make sure that U.S. military forces stationed abroad who are accused of
committing crimes are treated in a way that protects the individual rights of the defendant
at U.S. constitutional standards.
48
Given that the U.S. sees itself as fundamentally
providing a service to South Korea—a deterrent against attack from the North, and a
guarantee that it will come to South Korea’s defense if required, for which South Korea
should be grateful—and given that this service is provided by U.S. taxpayer money and
by volunteer troops who have other employment choices, by definition the SOFA must be
unequal in favoring U.S. standards, especially in states whose criminal law systems differ
markedly from that of the U.S. Otherwise Washington would be politically constrained
from being able to send its forces to those countries at all. In other words, if a country
wants U.S. troops on its territory, then it has to accept an “unequal” SOFA—or otherwise
the U.S. troops will go home (something as noted above that even very few young South
Koreans would favor).
47
“Basic Purposes of SOFA,” SOFA Briefing 2003 (unclassified), U.S. SOFA Secretariat (FKDC-SA), p.
4.
48
SOFA Briefing 2003, p. 8.
Convention