NATO SOFA is a multilateral agreement applicable to all NATO member countries. As of June 2007, 26 countries, including the United States, have ratified the agreement or joined it through NATO membership.9 In addition, 24 other countries are subject to NATO`s SOFA through their participation in NATO`s Partnership for Peace programme.10 Reducing threats to peace and building stronger security relationships11 PfP countries commit to the conditions of NATO`s SOFA.12 The United States has a common sofa with about 58 countries. Rice, then Secretary of State, and Mr. Gates, Secretary of State, said that the United States had agreements in more than 115 countries around the world.13 NATO SOFA and NATO PfP SOFA accounted for about half of the SOFAs of which the United States was a part. The United States has entered into SOFAs with countries to support certain activities or exercises. Generally speaking, these agreements are concluded to support a joint military exercise or humanitarian initiative. The SOFA will include a language that will limit the scope of the agreement to the specific activity, but sometimes there is a language that extends the agreement to other activities, as agreed between the two countries. Agreements are not based on a treaty or measure of Congress; rather, they are single executive agreements. Following the terrorist attacks of the 11.
