Challenges in Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement

August 28 , 2018

Earlier this year, Komeito established a working team to identify possible solutions to the ongoing issues posed by the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). Among these issues are high-profile accidents of U.S. military aircraft in Okinawa Prefecture, which the Japanese police are prohibited from accessing the scene under the agreement.

On August 3, Komeito submitted a list of proposals to the Japanese government to redress the problems with SOFA as it is presently constituted, one that includes the Japanese police’s “right to enter” U.S. military bases to carry out an independent investigation of mishaps and alleged crimes committed by U.S. military personnel and their dependents.

SOFA came into effect in 1960 under the overall security treaty signed between Japan and the U.S. The agreement allows the U.S. military use of facilities and areas in Japan, known collectively as “U.S. military bases,” and transfers virtually complete jurisdiction over personnel and operational rights of those bases to the U.S.

This transfer of legal authority almost entirely to the U.S. military has led to considerable criticism as an “unfair agreement” among domestic critics, particularly in Okinawa, where a series of U.S. military aircraft accidents have occurred while American soldiers, civilians and dependents have committed crimes against local citizens with persistent impunity over local laws.

While the two countries agreed 23 years ago to transfer a U.S. serviceman suspected of such major crimes as homicide and sexual assault to the host country before trial, only five cases have been processed in this manner to date. There is thus growing sentiment in Japan that such prosecutorial cases are basically left to the sole discretion of the U.S. military.

To remedy the situation, officials from Okinawa’s prefectural government visited Germany and Italy, which also have also signed SOFAs with the U.S., and in June, Komeito’s working team interviewed the prefecture’s officials on their findings.

The working team was told that Germany had revised its SOFA while Italy agreed on a new agreement altogether—with both governments doing so after public opinion had galvanized against the previous agreements as a result of major U.S. military accidents in their respective countries. The two nations can now legally access American military bases and retain a degree of legal authority over them.

The party members also held hearings with Japan’s foreign ministry, various local governments and experts on the bilateral agreement.

The five-point proposal submitted by Komeito includes the right to enter U.S. military bases as a matter of principle, which is currently not specified in the current SOFA; the establishment of a committee to reduce as much as possible the acoustic footprint of U.S. training exercises on local Japanese communities (in contrast, such exercises in Italy and Germany can not be held without explicit prior approval of the host nation); and to make transparent the revised terms to the bilateral agreement as possible.

In a statement in Komei Shimbun, the party’s daily organ, Kiyohiko Toyama, the House of Representatives member who led the working team, reiterated Komeito’s commitment to redressing the imbalance of rights assigned to the U.S. military under SOFA.

Komeito has been pushing the Japanese government in this area for some time, resulting in two supplemental agreements—the first to ensure environmental protection on U.S. military facilities in 2015 and the second to enable Japanese prosecution of American civilians working on base under certain conditions in 2017.