Guantanamo Bay: The Legal Black Hole1

2004 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Steyn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Black Hole ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Excessive Measures

The most powerful democracy is detaining hundreds of suspected foot soldiers of the Taliban in a legal black hole at the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay, where they await trial on capital charges by military tribunals. This episode must be put in context. Democracies must defend themselves. Democracies are entitled to try officers and soldiers of enemy forces for war crimes. But it is a recurring theme in history that in times of war, armed conflict, or perceived national danger, even liberal democracies adopt measures infringing human rights in ways that are wholly disproportionate to the crisis. One tool at hand is detention without charge or trial, that is, executive detention. Ill-conceived rushed legislation is passed granting excessive powers to executive governments which compromise the rights and liberties of individuals beyond the exigencies of the situation. Often the loss of liberty is permanent. Executive branches of government, faced with a perceived emergency, often resort to excessive measures. The litany of grave abuses of power by liberal democratic governments is too long to recount, but in order to understand and to hold governments to account, we do well to take intoaccount the circles of history.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 159-174
Author(s):  
William L. d'Ambruoso
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Elected Officials ◽  
The Past ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
European Institutions ◽  
Degrading Treatment ◽  
Recent Variation

This chapter explores the scope and limits of the book’s central claims, extending the argument to other circumstances and norms and describing cases that do not fit the theory. The chapter examines the recent variation between the United States and Europe on the question of torture. The human rights picture in Europe has improved over the past few decades in part because European institutions have been clearer than the United States about prohibiting cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, eliminating the antitorture norm’s specificity problem, and preventing a slippery slope that so often ends with torture. Finally, the chapter broadens the argument by demonstrating how the pervasive belief that autocrats have an edge over rule-bound democracies has tempted certain elected officials to chip away at their own liberal-democratic institutions.

Exceptionalism Again: The Bush Administration, the “Global War on Terror” and Human Rights

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 707-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary Foot
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
British Government ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Detention Facility ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Global War ◽  
Made In

When former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, gave his farewell address in December 2006, he expressed his dismay at the Bush administration's conduct during its anti-terrorist campaign. The United States had given up its vanguard role in the promotion of human rights, he averred, and appeared to have abandoned its ideals and principles. There have been many statements similar to this one made in the period since September 2001. Even close allies, such as the British government, for example, have called for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility on the grounds that, as a symbol of injustice, it had tarnished the United States as a “beacon of freedom, liberty and justice.”

scholarly journals Kepemimpinan Perempuan dalam Konstruksi Berpikir Presiden Tiga Negara

2022 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Syaiful Amin ◽  
Ganda Febri Kurniawan ◽  
Andy Suryadi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Women's Leadership ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Data Search ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
Vladimir Putin ◽  
Descriptive Method

<em>This study aims to investigate the thought construction of the leaders of three countries, namely Indonesia, the United States and Russia about women's leadership. This research was done by descriptive method. The data for this study was obtained from the official tweets of the presidents of three countries on Twitter. The keywords in the data search were: leadership, women, politics, human rights, and justice. Data analysis was carried out with the Nvivo 12 Pro. The results show that Joe Biden has a stronger thinking construct about women's state leadership with as many as 51, discussed by Joko Widodo in the second position with as many as 49 and Vladimir Putin in the last position with as many as 25. This also answers the thesis that with a liberal democratic system more open to women's leadership compared to the Pancasila democratic system and socialist democracy.</em>

Sliding off Torture’s Halo of Prohibition

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-239
Author(s):  
Adam Henschke
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cognitive Bias ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Domestic Terrorism ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Lesser Evil

Before the Al Qaeda attacks in the us, it was hard to find support for torture in the liberal-democratic world. However, post 9/11 torture (or at least something very close to torture) was used by liberal democracies like the United States (us). Practices like water-boarding were justified by reference to the war on terror. Underneath this lies a reasoning that we have two options, some large scale act of violence and torture, and that torture is a lesser evil, exemplified by ‘ticking time bomb’ scenarios – if you have two options, both bad, but one is far worse than the other, the lesser evil seems a reasonable decision. This article proposes that there is a moral danger through slippage from recognising torture as a generally justified action. It explains this slippage by reference to the ‘halo effect’: a cognitive bias in which something is judged as permissible or good through association with non-relevant facts. Given the current risks of domestic terrorism, the article argues that we need to learn from the us example post 9/11 to ensure that we avoid justifying uses of torture in non-exceptional circumstances.

Guantanamo

2018 ◽  
pp. 99-125
Author(s):  
Carl Lindskoog
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
History Of ◽  
Prison Camp ◽  
The U.S

Chapter 5 examines the government’s first detention camp at the U.S naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the experience of the Haitian refugees—the original Guantanamo detainees—held there from 1991 to 1994. An important part of this history also involves the government’s detention of HIV-positive Haitians in the world’s first and only “HIV prison camp.” Examining the political and legal challenges to the government’s use of off-shore detention at Guantanamo, this chapter illuminates the history of the legal struggle over the government’s authority to detain in such extraterritorial facilities and debates over how far the U.S. Constitution might reach beyond the United States’ territorial boundaries, and when exercising the U.S. Constitution can lead to human rights abuses.

International Human Rights and Domestic Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory S. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
The Press ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Government ◽  
Domestic Law

In light of the compelling empirical connection between hate speech and atrocity, what laws, if any, criminalize the dissemination of such rhetoric? Chapter 2 begins to answer that question by examining international human rights instruments and domestic laws covering speech and violence. It notes there is an inbuilt clash in the principal human rights documents between free expression and freedom from invidious discrimination. Most of the world’s liberal democracies protect dignity against discrimination. The United States does not. The world’s most speech-protective jurisdiction, its Constitution’s First Amendment stipulates that the government may “make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” As the United States plays a prominent role in developing the criminalization of atrocity speech on the global stage, and as its Supreme Court has often held forth on issues of speech liberty, its domestic jurisprudence is a particular focus of this chapter.

UPDATE ON UNITED STATES MILITARY COMMISSIONS

2007 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 198-231
Author(s):  
Sarah Finnin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Military ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Military Commissions ◽  
The Military

AbstractThis article provides a detailed update on the progress of the United States military commissions under the regime established by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 for the trial of detainees captured during the War on Terror for so-called war crimes. In particular, the author examines the plea and sentencing of Australian detainee David Hicks, the pre-trial developments in the case of Canadian detainee Omar Khadr, and the early litigation involving the detainees who have been dubbed the ‘September 11 co-conspirators’. The author also touches on the Supreme Court decision inHamdanv.Rumsfeld, some of the significant features of the Military Commission Act, the recent federal court litigation in the case ofBoumedienev.Bush, and the construction of the new military commission building at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

Torture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Sanders
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Global War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Enhanced Interrogation ◽  
Torture Memos

Despite its universal and absolute prohibition in international human rights and humanitarian law, torture has persisted even in liberal democracies. This chapter traces how changing national security legal cultures have shaped justifications for torture in the United States, culminating in an extensive torture program in the global war on terror. A culture of exception helped legitimize slave torture, lynching, and colonial torture through much of the United States’ early history, while a culture of secrecy facilitated covert and proxy torture during the Cold War. After 9/11, American authorities operated in a culture of legal rationalization. Rather than suspend or ignore the torture prohibition, the Bush administration sought legal cover for torture. As evidenced by the torture memos, lawyers reframed practices such as waterboarding as lawful enhanced interrogation techniques. These attempts to construct the plausible legality of torture effectively immunized Americans from prosecution for grave human rights violations.

THE YEAR IN REVIEW

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 195-232
Author(s):  
Susan C. Breau
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Significant Shift ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many

AbstractThis year in review will first discuss the major developments that contributed towards the formation or enforcement of international humanitarian law. Despite the many positive developments in the elucidation of international humanitarian law, 2009 witnessed the continuation of violent armed conflict around the world, not least in Sri Lanka where the long standing armed conflict came to a bloody conclusion amidst allegations of summary executions and other serious violations of international humanitarian law. Two other conflicts involving Israel/Gaza and Russia/Georgia which took place in 2008 and early 2009, resulted in the release of two influential international investigative reports, each of which alleged serious violations of international humanitarian law and called for the enforcement of criminal accountability. The election of Barack Obama marked a significant shift in the attitude of the United States to terrorism and detention with the new President immediately announcing on taking office, the closure of Guantánamo Bay.

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