Jenks on Criminal Jurisdiction as a Dealkiller for a US-Afghan SOFA
Over at OJ, Chris Jenks (SMU Law) contends that US-Afghan negotiations for a post-2014 SOFA are likely in the end to come apart over the question of Afghan criminal jurisdiction over U.S. servicemembers. This is a critical point, and one well-worth bearing in mind anytime one encounters the claim that the United States will maintain a significant ground presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014. Should Chris's prediction pan out, I think the U.S.
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Over at OJ, Chris Jenks (SMU Law) contends that US-Afghan negotiations for a post-2014 SOFA are likely in the end to come apart over the question of Afghan criminal jurisdiction over U.S. servicemembers. This is a critical point, and one well-worth bearing in mind anytime one encounters the claim that the United States will maintain a significant ground presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014. Should Chris's prediction pan out, I think the U.S. role in Afghanistan circa 2015 will look much like its current role in Yemen (some airstrikes and a lot of Foreign Internal Defense activities). Note that such a result would seem to run with the grain of the administration's preference for light-footprint, in-the-shadows forms of counterterrorism, not to mention enabling the President to claim the mantle of having extracted the U.S. from not just one but two overseas wars.
Robert (Bobby) Chesney is the Dean of the University of Texas School of Law, where he also holds the James A. Baker III Chair in the Rule of Law and World Affairs at UT. He is known internationally for his scholarship relating both to cybersecurity and national security. He is a co-founder of Lawfare, the nation’s leading online source for analysis of national security legal issues, and he co-hosts the popular show The National Security Law Podcast.
