Sovereign Base: Difference between revisions

Sovereign bases are exclaves under the full sovereignty of a remote state, typically established through treaties, for the purpose of securely maintaining military installations outside the state’s main national territory.

The term sovereign base is not a formal category in international law with the only extant sovereign bases being Akrotiri and Dhekelia in Cyprus. These millitary bases retained British sovereignty in 1960.^[2]

American sovereign bases have been suggested as a part of the solution to the Greenland crisis, dispensing with the need to ask permission from Denmark although there are concerns that this is not a stable solution. Other overseas military installations have been compared to sovereign bases, such as Guantanamo Bay, Mayotte and Diego Garcia.

See Also

References

Sources

• Donaldson, Maggy (16 September 2016). “France’s Indian Ocean prize”. Le Monde diplomatique. Le Monde diplomatique. Retrieved 24 January 2026.
• Harding, Thomas (22 January 2026). “Cyprus-style deal for US airbases in Greenland could solve annexation row”. The National. Retrieved 24 January 2026.
• Jakes, Lara (21 January 2026). “Trump Says He Has Framework for Greenland Deal as NATO Mulls Idea of U.S. Sovereignty Over Bases”. The New York Times. Retrieved 24 January 2026.
• Hadjigeorgiou, Nasia (2021). “Sovereign Base Areas (SBA)”. Oxford Encyclopedia of Public International Law. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 24 January 2026.
• Lilley, Peter (25 November 2025). “Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill – Committee (2nd Day): Amendments 20L, 20S, 20T, and 63”. Peter Lilley MP. Peter Lilley. Retrieved 24 January 2026. The most compelling comparison is … between what we are doing now and the reasons given for doing it and the independence of Cyprus, where we severed off the sovereign bases.
• Loucaides, Darren (1 May 2017). “Why are there still British military bases in Cyprus?”. New Internationalist. New Internationalist. Retrieved 24 January 2026. Arguably, the only other territory with a comparable status is the US base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.
• Stringer, Connor (21 January 2026). “Revealed: Trump’s Greenland deal”. The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 24 January 2026.
• Weller, Marc (23 January 2026). “If Trump’s ‘framework’ Greenland agreement relies on creating ‘sovereign’ bases, it would bring long-term legal issues”. Chatham House. Royal Institute of International Affairs. Retrieved 24 January 2026.