Revoking the Plea in the 9/11 Case: The Cycle of Lawlessness at Guantanamo Continues
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s recent decision to revoke the plea agreements for three defendants in the 9/11 case at Guantanamo, including alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), was at once shocking and predictable: shocking that the Defense Secretary would step in deus ex machina at the eleventh hour to scuttle a deal negotiated by the [...]
On Friday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rejected a controversial plea deal that would have prevented three alleged 9/11 terror attack planners from facing the death penalty. Earlier this week, a letter to the families of 9/11 victims revealed that alleged co-conspirators Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Walid Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa al Hawsawi had pled guilty to orchestrating [...]
International Law in Modern Warfare: An Interview with Professor Andrew Clapham
Professor Andrew Clapham of the Geneva Graduate Institute is a leading expert in the interplay of war and international law. In his timely new book “War,” Clapham explores the modern relevance of the concept of war and how it shapes our understanding of rights and obligations in both national and international law, questioning whether the [...]
US Supreme Court rejects former Guantanamo detainee's request to appeal war crime convictions
The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by a Canadian-born former Guantanamo Bay detainee who was seeking to wipe away his war crimes convictions, including one for the killing of a US soldier in Afghanistan. Omar Khadr waived his right to appeal in 2010 when he pleaded guilty to murder charges. Despite a [...]
Shamima Begum, a young woman who left the UK as a schoolgirl to join ISIS in Syria, has recently lost an appeal to regain her British citizenship. This decision, leaving her effectively stateless and in a Syrian detention camp, has sparked renewed debate. In this interview, JURIST speaks with Professor Ben Saul, a UN expert [...]
Samuel Moyn’s Unprincipled Attack on Human Rights Giant Michael Ratner Is Shameful
Samuel Moyn’s vicious and unprincipled attack on Michael Ratner, one of the finest human rights attorneys of our time, was published in the New York Review of Books (NYRB) on September 1. Moyn singles out Ratner as a whipping boy to support his own bizarre theory that punishing war crimes prolongs war by making it [...]
Will Guantanamo Continue As An Unnecessary Presidential Legacy?
Almost five years ago I contributed to a Commentary to JURIST entitled, “Guantanamo: An Unnecessary Presidential Legacy,” which focused on former President Barack Obama’s unsuccessful attempt to shut down the Guantanamo prison facility because of missed opportunities, faulty decision making, internal administration opposition and ultimately partisan political division that resulted in an unnecessary presidential legacy. [...]
Guantanamo Bay detainee Abu Zubaydah, who has been detained for 19 years without charges or a trial, filed a complaint on Friday with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions (UNWGAD) requesting intervention in his case. Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan after the September 11 attacks and was held and tortured by the CIA in [...]
The US Navy on Saturday fired the commander of the Guantanamo military prison for “loss of confidence in his ability to command,” according to a Defense Department official who does not have the authority to speak publicly. Navy Rear Adm. John Ring took command of the task force that oversees the prison facilities at Guantanamo. [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday that more than two years of decisions by Colonel Vance Spath, a military tribunal judge who formerly oversaw the case of Abd Al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Al-Nashiri, should be discarded because he failed to disclose his application to be an Immigration Judge in the Department [...]
