Military Commissions
179 Articles

Corn and Jenks and Me on
Military Jurisdiction and Article III
For Federal Courts nerds, those with nothing better to do, or both, I thought I’d post links to two pieces of interest arising out of my recently published article, Military…

The Government (Sort of) Wins a Guantánamo Military Commission Appeal
No, not that one. In a two-page order issued this morning, the D.C. Circuit (Tatel, Griffith, & Silberman, JJ.) dismissed the appeal of former Guantánamo detainee Ibrahim…

The NDAA 2016: GTMO Restrictions Redux (and A Sensible Alternative From Rep. Smith)
The full House Armed Service Committee today will be considering (what’s known as “marking up”) the draft National Defense Authorization Act for 2016 (NDAA). Sections 1036…

The al Bahlul Oral Argument Semianniversary
Today, April 22, marks the six-month anniversary of the oral argument before the D.C. Circuit in al Bahlul v. United States, by far the most significant constitutional challenge…

The Complexity of Addressing Sexual Violence Experienced by Guantanamo Bay Detainees
The Senate Torture Report enabled deeper understanding of the depth and range of violence experienced at CIA black sites by male detainees who later ended up at Guantanamo Bay,…

More on Flawed Research and Flawed Counterterrorism Policies
I want to concur with the thoughtful views articulated by Michael German last week addressing terrorism and counterterrorism research. Having spent twenty years working and researching…

When Does Int’l Humanitarian Law Call for Releasing Prisoners in Armed Conflicts
On March 30, lawyers representing five Afghan detainees at Guantanamo Bay asked President Obama and four senior administration officials to release their clients on the grounds…

Perfidy, ambush, snipers, and the COLE bombing (al Nashiri) case
Thanks to Rogier Bartels and Kevin Heller for their fascinating debate here and at Opinio Juris on whether the alleged Israeli/U.S. car-bomb operation operation that killed Hezbollah’s…

Salvadoran General Deemed Deportable In the Absence of Criminal Charges
UPDATE: Former Defense Minister of El Salvador, Vides Casanova, has been detained pending extradition. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) ruled last week that General Carlos…

Video: UN Expert Pablo de Greiff on Holding US Officials Responsible for Torture
Last week, I had the chance to ask Pablo de Greiff, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, about accountability…

Judge Pohl’s rebuke of DOD’s unorthodox effort to accelerate the 9/11 trial
[UPDATED at 6:00 p.m. with links to, and some discussion of, DoD rationales and the regulatory amendment itself.] Things have been moving very slowly, to say the least, in the…

What is no longer classified? (and what does it portend for the credibility of government declarations insisting on the need for categorical secrecy of covert action programs?)
The prosecution’s motion to amend the protective order in the 9/11 military commission is finally posted. As I discussed here, Judge Spath has granted a similar motion…