Treatment of Battlefield Detainees in the War on Terrorism

In June, 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rasul v. Bush that U.S. courts have jurisdiction to hear challenges on behalf of persons detained at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in connection with the war against terrorism. The Court overturned a ruling that no U.S. court has jurisdiction to hear petitions for habeas corpus on behalf of the detainees because they are aliens detained abroad, but left questions involving prisoners rights and status unanswered. The 9/11 Commission recommended a common coalition approach to such detention. The Senate voted to deny detainees access to federal courts to file habeas petitions (S.Amdt. 2524 to S. 1042, Graham Amendment ), but to allow limited appeals. The Bush Administration earlier deemed all of the detainees to be unlawful combatants, who may, according to Administration officials, be held indefinitely without trial or even if they are acquitted by a military tribunal. Fifteen of the detainees have been designated as subject to the President s Military Order of November 13, 2001, making them eligible for trial by military commission. In answer to the Rasul decision, the Pentagon instituted Combatant Status Review Tribunals to provide a forum for detainees to challenge their status as enemy combatants. The Pentagon had earlier announced a plan for annual reviews to determine whether detainees may be released without endangering national security. The President s decision to deny the detainees prisoner-of-war (POW) status remains a point of contention, especially overseas and among human rights organizations, with some arguing that it is based on an inaccurate interpretation of the Geneva Convention for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (GPW), which they assert requires that all combatants captured on the battlefield are entitled to be treated as POWs until an independent tribunal has determined otherwise. ; CRS Report for Congress