law of visiting forces

2018 May

Jurisdiction and the Law of Visiting Forces

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In This contribution to the second edition of Dieter Fleck's The Handbook of the Law of Visiting Forces, Paul J. Conderman and I provide a detailed account of the exercise of criminal and administrative jurisdiction over visiting forces. The chapter focuses primarily on the NATO Status of Forces Agreement and the United Nations Model SOFA, but also addresses customary international law.

2015 November

The Status of Armed Forces in Public International Law: Jurisdiction and Immunity

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In this contribution to the Research Handbook on Jurisdiction and Immunities in International Law (edited by Alexander Orakhelashvili), I explore how the rules of State jurisdiction and State immunity apply to foreign armed forces. What is the law of the flag? Why is the legal status of foreign military personnel not the same as that of tourists? Find out here!

2015 April

The Fable of the Law of the Flag

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For a couple of years, I have contributed to the NATO Legal Advisors Course at NATO School Oberammergau. In the past, I spoke about the European Union's practice in the field of status of forces agreements and the application of the rules of international responsibility to NATO. This year, my brief was to place the NATO Status of Forces Agreement of 1951 into its broader context by providing an overview of the legal framework governing the status of foreign armed forces in international law. In doing so, my aim was to dispell two persisent myths: first, that the so-called 'law of the flag' principle represents the traditional position of international law in this area and, second, that in the absence of status of forces agreements, soldiers enjoy the same legal position as tourists. In this post, I briefly explain why both of these assumptions are wrong.

2013 March

Manual of the International Law in Peace Operations

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In 2011, the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War launched an international research project designed to produce a Manual of the International Law in Peace Operations. The Manual is intended to provide for the first time an authoritative exposé and critical assessment of the law applicable to the planning and conduct

2011 March

The Handbook of the International Law of Military Operations / Terry D. Gill and Dieter Fleck (eds)

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The Handbook of the International Law of Military Operations. Terry D. Gill and Dieter Fleck (eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2010. 688pp. Index. £95. ISBN 978-0-19-954589-6. The present volume constitutes the third instalment in a series of handbooks (co-)edited by Dieter Fleck and published by Oxford University Press. The first of these works, The Handbook