From friends to foes: foreign troops in post-conflict situations

Foreign armed forces frequently play an important part in the transition from a state of conflict to a state of peace, yet their presence more often than not is a source of controversy, as the cases of Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate. Under these circumstances, we may legitimately expect the rules of international law governing the legal status of such forces to serve a dual function: they should lay down certain general standards of behaviour and provide a framework for interaction between sending States and host States, thus injecting a measure of predictability and procedural legitimacy into an otherwise highly volatile legal and political setting.

He will suggest that two distinct concerns relating to the legal position of foreign forces arise in post-conflict situations: the effect that changes in the legal basis of their presence have on their legal status and the need to balance the principle of territorial sovereignty and the jurisdictional exemptions of foreign forces in a manner that reflects the specific features and demands of post-conflict environments. Both of these two concerns point towards the need for a more contextual and dynamic understanding of the legal status of foreign forces deployed in post-conflict environment.

Dr Sari is a Lecturer in Law specializing in public international law and the legal aspects of European security and defence policy. He is particularly interested in the legal status of foreign armed forces under international law and other questions of military and operational law. He is currently preparing a monograph on the subject to be published by Cambridge University Press.

Before taking up an appointment at Exeter Law School in 2008, he studied law and politics at the University of Durham (BA, First Class), the London School of Economics (LLM, Distinction) and University College London (PhD). His work has been published in leading academic journals, including the European Journal of International Law and the International and Comparative Law Quarterly.

He is a member of several academic associations and serve on the ILA Committee on Nuclear Weapons, Non-proliferation & Contemporary International Law, the ILA Study Group on The Conduct of Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law and the editorial board of The Military Law and the Law of War Review. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law in Cambridge in 2009 and have taught law at universities in the UK and abroad.