{"id":5190,"date":"2007-04-18T09:00:51","date_gmt":"2007-04-18T13:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/?p=5190"},"modified":"2011-05-23T11:23:55","modified_gmt":"2011-05-23T15:23:55","slug":"online_48_knowles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/2007\/04\/online_48_knowles\/","title":{"rendered":"Detainee Policy and the Rule of Law: A Response"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">I am not surprised that Mr. Bellinger encounters resistance abroad when he attempts to defend the Administration\u2019s detainee policy. Although it\u2019s unfair to expect from informal remarks the clarity and precision of a legal memo, what he offers here\u2014mainly, that the \u201chaz[iness]\u201d of the law applicable to those at Guant\u00e1namo and other overseas prisons justifies an ad hoc, evolving approach\u2014is not very convincing. He echoes the strained analysis of infamous White House legal memos. He paints a distorted picture of who these prisoners are and how they were captured. And he does not address the main purpose of the policy and the reason it went so seriously awry: it is, at bottom, a botched effort to expand counter-intelligence operations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In his remarks, Mr. Bellinger frequently mentions that the law in this area is complex; he observes, for example, that prominent scholars do not agree on whether the prisoners should be subjected to criminal process or treated as prisoners of war (\u201cPOWs\u201d) under the Geneva Conventions. But it is odd to conclude from this, as Mr. Bellinger seems to, that the law should be ignored or selectively applied. Echoing now-familiar Administration arguments, Mr. Bellinger invokes legal authority without acknowledging the corresponding limits. He explains that the United States was\u00a0authorized to detain people at Guant\u00e1namo because \u201c[w]e are in a legal state of armed conflict with Al Qaeda,\u201d yet the prisoners there \u201cdon\u2019t fit under the traditional laws of war\u201d because Al Qaeda is not a nation and lacks a conventional army. In truth, the law of war does not recognize such loopholes. Under Article 5 of the Geneva Convention (Third) Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (\u201cGeneva III\u201d), the prisoners are presumed to be POWs, and are entitled to have their status determined, on an individual basis, by a \u201ccompetent tribunal.\u201d But even if they are determined not to be POWs protected by Geneva III, the prisoners must be afforded the protections of the Geneva Convention (Fourth) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (\u201cGeneva IV\u201d), including freedom from \u201cphysical or moral coercion . . . exercised . . . to obtain information from them or third parties.\u201d In any event, all people detained during an armed conflict are protected by the fundamental guarantees of Common Article 3, a provision found in all four Geneva Conventions that prohibits, among other things, \u201ccruel treatment and torture,\u201d \u201coutrages upon personal dignity,\u201d and \u201chumiliating and degrading treatment.\u201d As the ICRC\u2019s authoritative commentary on the Conventions puts it, \u201cnobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><em><em>* This excerpt does not include citations. To read the entire article, including supporting notes, please download the PDF.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am not surprised that Mr. Bellinger encounters resistance abroad when he attempts to defend the Administration\u2019s detainee policy. Although it\u2019s unfair to expect from informal remarks the clarity and precision of a legal memo, what he offers here\u2014mainly, that the \u201chaz[iness]\u201d of the law applicable to those at Guant\u00e1namo and other overseas prisons justifies an ad hoc, evolving approach\u2014is not very convincing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-series"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZu3S-1lI","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}