United Nations Command-Rear

United Nations Command-Rear (also known as UN Command-Rear or UNC-Rear) is a rump military command headquartered in Japan, and a subordinate element of the United Nations Command. UN Command-Rear was established in 1957 as a result of the relocation of UN Command from Japan to South Korea. It is nominally in control of the rear elements of what the United States and South Korea contend are United Nations military forces in northeast Asia.

In practice, UN Command-Rear is a legal cover created to prevent the expiration of the 1954 Status of Forces Agreement between the United States (doing business as "the Unified Command") and Japan which provides for its self-termination "on the date by which all the United Nations forces shall be withdrawn from Japan". As of 2018, UN Command-Rear had a strength of four personnel.

Background
The Korean War broke out in 1950, following which the United Nations Security Council authorized armed intervention on the side of South Korea. According to the United States, it agreed to be named "executive agent" of the United Nations and, subsequently, formed a "United Nations Command". The UN Command, under Douglas MacArthur and his wartime successors, oversaw military operations on the Korean Peninsula from a headquarters in Japan.

Formation of UN Command-Rear


Active hostilities concluded in 1953 and, in 1957, the UN Command relocated from Japan to South Korea. However, a 1954 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the United States (signed as "the Government of the United States of America acting as the Unified Command") with Japan required the United Nations Command to maintain a presence in that nation as a precondition for continued use of Japanese territory for military purposes. A break in the presence of forces under UN command in Japan would cause the termination of the SOFA and allow Japan to reassert total sovereignty over its territory. Specifically, Article 15 of the 1954 Status of Forces Agreement specifies:

This Agreement and agreed revisions thereof shall terminate on the date by which all the United Nations forces shall be withdrawn from Japan ...

United Nations Command-Rear was created, therefore, as a legal construct designed to ensure the treaty requirements needed for indefinite use of Japanese territory were met, or what The Mandarin has described as "a form of legal trickery". UN Command-Rear, itself, describes its existence as one designed "to maintain the UN‐GOJ SOFA [United Nations-Government of Japan Status of Forces Agreement]".

Upon formation of the UN Command-Rear, it was determined it should be placed under an officer who was not American so that it would not appear to be "a parochial US organisation". From 1957 to 1976, Thailand supplied an officer to UN Command-Rear, following which command responsibilities were assumed by the United Kingdom for two years. From 1978 until at least 1987, the Philippines provided an officer to lead UN Command Rear. Since 2010, Australia has traditionally made an officer available to the United States to be placed in command of UN Command-Rear.

In 2007, UN Command-Rear relocated from its longtime headquarters at Camp Zama to Yokota Air Base.

Status according to the United States
The United States maintains that the United Nations Command, to which United Nations Command-Rear answers, is a military organization of the United Nations. The United States asserts that Security Council Resolution 84 made it the "executive agent" of the United Nations in Korea and that the UN had, through that process, delegated to the United States the authority to organize and command military forces on behalf of the UN and to independently determine when peace did or did not exist in Korea.

Selig S. Harrison has said the United States' reason for advancing this position instead of asserting a bilateral alliance between the U.S. and South Korea is substantially due to its desire to legally maintain perpetual access to Japanese territory, which is achieved via the existence of United Nations Command-Rear, without the requirement to seek prior Japanese approval. While the 1961 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between the United States and Japan also gives the United States access to Japanese territory, it requires prior consultation with the Japanese government before American forces can be introduced into Japan.

Status according to the United Nations
In contrast to the United States, the United Nations Secretariat asserts that the UN "did not establish the unified command as a subsidiary organ under its control, but merely recommended the creation of such a command, specifying that it be under the authority of the United States" and that – since, in its view, the UN Command is not a UN body – only the United States can dissolve it. Narushige Michishita of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies has explained that "United Nations Command and UNC-Rear Command is basically US organizations. They are virtually activated under the US law."

Status according to North Korea
North Korea, for its part, claims that the United States "used the United Nations as a tool of realizing their wild ambition of world domination ... and participated in the war in the guise of the UN flag in order to hide the true colours of war-maker". Pak Chol Gu of the Pyongyang-based Korean Anti-Nuclear Peace Committee has described the UN Command as a "phantom body" and has said that "since the founding of the United Nations, such a command has existed only in South Korea".

Authority
According to the Australian Defence Force Journal, UNC-R performs "certain administrative, support and liaison functions of a diplomatic type". Specifically, United Nations Command-Rear nominally has joint authority, with the United States, over seven "UN-flagged" bases in Japan: Camp Zama, Yokota Air Base, Yokosuka Naval Base, Sasebo Naval Base, Kadena Air Base, White Beach Naval Facility, and Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. In practice, however, all facilities are under the operational control of the United States.

UN Command-Rear is also charged with providing legal notice to Japan regarding the entrance of military forces from any of the nine SOFA co-signer states into Japanese territory, specifically, those of the United States, United Kingdom, Philippines, Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, Turkey, and Thailand. Under the SOFA agreement, the movement of signatory state military forces into Japan can occur with or without Japanese approval. However, the agreement does require that a courtesy notice be provided to the Japanese government "prior to entry" except in "cases of emergency or where security is involved" in which case military forces can enter Japan without advance notification being given to the Japanese government.

In 2014 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for greater Japanese input into the operational use of US Forces Japan. In response, according to the Chosun Ilbo, the United States indicated that emergency deployment of U.S. forces could occur "automatically" and that "Tokyo would not have a say in the matter". The Chosun Ilbo noted that U.S. facilities in Japan are under UN Command-Rear and "thus there is no basis for Japan to meddle".

Personnel
As of 2007, United Nations Command-Rear had a strength of four personnel.

According to Roger Chiasson, a former Canadian military officer who served as deputy commander of UN Command-Rear, his duties were "anything but onerous" and allowed him to live "a life of great privilege" during his assignment as second-in-command of the four-person unit, including access to various United States government-owned golf courses, stores, and a private hotel in downtown Tokyo.