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When an imbalance of representible matter exists, the basis of the rule of law is jeopardized.
What may be done in war is authorized by an intermediary party. A court may review claims by Guantanamo detainees based on alleigance neither to the targets nor the suspects of terrorism, but rather to institutions that are biased toward neither side. A court cannot accept reviewing detainees who have declared war on America, just as the detainees refuse to listen to every man, woman, and child in the United States. The court is not a legitimate place to hear the testimony of a sworn enemy, and state enemies are not welcome in state courts. What might give these detainees a place in the U.S. legal system, should we need it, is a change of name from "enemy combatant" to "terrorist." This strategy at once "brings the war home" to the United States's own legal system, and cancels out the notion that the United States is at war in the first place. This logical redundancy has manifested in the name of the newest government administrative body, the Department of Homeland Security.
The 1962 Supreme Court ruling in the case Gideon v. Wainwright provided precedent to provide legal counsel to defendents. A man charged with breaking and entering in Florida was not provided with legal representation for lack of financial resources, and the Supreme Court ruled that in order to uphold the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, courts should make arrangements to provide counsel to anyone in need. Anyone within the United States legal system is essentially representible. If the people of the United...
The Geneva laws of war were written to prevent world war, but they are not sophisticated enough to prevent mass paranoia and individualist hysteria. If accusations of human rights violations are valid in Guantanamo Bay, then domestic United States laws and international Geneva Convention laws are being volated. The United States is fully responsible for upholding the rule of law on its soil, and under Gideon v. Wainright these detainees deserve the right to representation.
The era of Congressionally approved war is seen by some as an archaic way of getting things done. However, the Constitution has provided Congress with the power of the purse and the authority to approve a Presidential appeal to war. Though this procedure has not been followed through since World War II, the list of executive branch wars is a string of failures. The legislative branch of the federal government has the constitutional responsibility to approve war and how much to budget out on it. Now that the executive branch has gone haywire in battling terrorism, the judicial branch must tidy up the mess in the Carribean Sea.
Works Cited
Byers, Michael. War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict. Grove Press: New York, 2005. Print.
The Oyez Project. "Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963)." Accessed Monday, November…
Works Cited
Byers, Michael. War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict. Grove Press: New York, 2005. Print.
The Oyez Project. "Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963)." Accessed Monday, November 15, 2010.
Human Rights Violations at Guantanamo Bay Hundreds of foreign nationals are being held in prison camps at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base since January 2002 without access to any court, legal counsel or family visits. Despite repeated appeals by international organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as several governments around the world, the U.S. administration refuses to grant the detainees prisoners of war (POW) status or
Guantanamo Bay and the United States History of Guantanamo Bay, and the U.S. Involvement with Guantanamo Bay The Legality of the U.S. Occupation of Guantanamo Bay Why Do the U.S. Hold Guantanamo Bay? The Legal Position Regarding the U.S. Being in Guantanamo Bay Recent Events at Guantanamo Bay: Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta The Legal Position Regarding Events at U.S. Camps in Guantanamo Bay The Geneva Convention and Guantanamo Bay In the last two years the U.S. naval
" 28 U.S.C. [section] 2241-(3). Cf. United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 277-78 (1990) (Kennedy, J., concurring), and cases cited therein (Katyal, p. 1365)." The Bush Administration says that the detainees pose a threat to the United States, and the detainees are complicit either in the September 11, 2001 attack against the United States; or that they took part in separate but no less equally threatening plots to commit acts
Introduction The United States has leased 45 square miles of land and water at Guantanamo Bay from Cuba for more than a century. Commonly known as “Gitmo,” the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay has been the source of increasing calls for its closure as no longer necessary or appropriate in the 21st century. To determine the facts, this paper reviews the relevant literature concerning Guantanamo Bay to provide the background
Unlawful Detention at Guantanamo Bay In his book The Enemy Within, author Stephen J. Schulhofer notes, "In the two months following September 11, approximately 1200 foreign nationals living in the United States were arrested and detained by federal law enforcement agencies," (11). In addition to these foreign nationals, who are detained at Guantanamo Bay and other disclosed and undisclosed locations, a number of United States Citizens have been detained for indefinite
Background of Terrorist Trials in the United States Terrorism occupies a unique liminal position, somewhere between acts of war and criminal acts. Because of this, jurisdiction, the rights of terrorist suspects, and other ethical and legal conundrums have lent themselves to an inconsistent and ambiguous terrorist trial system in the United States. Historically, as now, terrorist trials in the United States have taken place in several different jurisdictions, and prosecutorial discretion