Japanese Demands for a Revision of the U.S. Japan Status of Forces Agreement: "The Political and Legal Status of The U.S. Forces in Japan and the Revision Process of the German Supplementary Agreement to the NATO SOFA in Comparative Perspective"

Written by Emre SARAOĞLU

Abstract

Research conducted on the U.S. - Japan SOFA has hitherto focused either on the process of negotiations, as a result of which the agreement was concluded, or has taken up the legal problems arising from the provisions of the agreement. These studies have frequently referred to the provisions of the German Supplementary Agreement to the NATO SOFA, which were revised in 1993. However, in comparing the provisions of the agreements which Germany and Japan have signed, the international political backdrop against which these agreements were concluded has often been overlooked. There exists no study which has compared the revision and amendment processes in these two countries and analyzed the critical political (both domestic and international) and legal dynamics. This analysis aims at filling this gap. It compares and analyzes the similarities and disparities observed with the juxtaposition of the two processes, and assert that while in Germany, a legal modification was demanded to reflect the new political setting which materialized with the reunification, in Japan, a legal modification is being demanded to generate a new political setting.

Keywords: Okinawa, Status-of-Forces Agreement, Legal Status of Foreign Military Personnel, International Security.

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This article is based on the author’s master’s dissertation, entitled “Political and Legal Factors in the Revision of Status-of-Forces Agreements: A Comparative Analysis of Japan and Germany,” and submitted to the Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, on January 2003.
Emre SARAOĞLU is from Bosch Corporation Japan (Yokohama / Japan)
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