Part VI Conclusions for the Planning of Military Deployments, 47 Visiting Forces in an Operational Context

Subject(s):

Military assistance — Sovereignty — Collective security — Military matters

This chapter summarizes key issues for Visiting Forces as relevant for judge advocates, government civilian attorneys, and military legal advisors. The presence of one State’s military forces in another State’s territory raises significant issues about the relationship between those states. Sending States will desire to assert their control over their armed forces during the deployment, while Receiving States will desire to assert their sovereign control over their territory. It is the combined effort of states to balance such interests for mutual security benefits that forms the object and purpose of the law of Visiting Forces. The law of Visiting Forces focuses on aspects of the peacetime presence of a Sending State’s armed forces within the territory of a Receiving State. Since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2011, states have increasingly conducted military activities in complex circumstances that may also implicate the law of armed conflict.