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Argument: Lengthy detentions of prisoners at Guantanamo violates habeas corpus
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- Suzanne Nossel, Senior Fellow at the Security and Peace Institute. "10 Reasons to Close Guantanamo". Democracy Arsenal. June 12, 2005 - "To expedite the determination of which inmates warrant continued detention – One of the most egregious aspects of the Guantanamo process is the fact that after being captive for three and a half years, many of the 540 detainees have still not had the benefit of a hearing to determine whether there is evidence to back their designation as enemy combatants. Some still haven't even seen a lawyer. With a fixed timeline to shut down Guantanamo, those hearings would need to happen more quickly."
- "Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Civil and Political Rights. Situation of detainees at Guantánamo Bay". United Nations Economic and Social Council. February 15, 2006 - "II. ARBITRARY DETENTION AND INDEPENDENCE OF JUDGES AND LAWYERS 17. The Chairperson of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention17 and the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers are deeply concerned about the legal regime applied by the United States to the detainees in the Guantánamo Bay detention centre. In their view, the legal regime applied to these detainees seriously undermines the rule of law and a number of fundamental universally recognized human rights, which are the essence of democratic societies. These include the right to challenge the lawfulness of the detention before a court (ICCPR, art. 9 (4)) and the right to a fair trial by a competent, independent and impartial court of law (ICCPR, art. 14); they protect every person from arbitrary detention and unjust punishment and safeguard the presumption of innocence." The United States justifies the indeterminate detention of the men held at Guantánamo Bay and the denial of their right to challenge the legality of the deprivation of liberty by classifying them as “enemy combatants”. For the reasons the Chairperson of the Working Group and the Special Rapporteur will elaborate, to the extent permitted by the constraints of this report, the ongoing detention of the Guantánamo Bay detainees as “enemy combatants” does in fact constitute arbitrary deprivation of the right to personal liberty. 21. Because detention “without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities” amounts to a radical departure from established principles of human rights law, it is particularly important to distinguish between the detainees captured by the United States in the course of an armed conflict and those captured under circumstances that did not involve an armed conflict. In this context, it is to be noted that the global struggle against international terrorism does not, as such, constitute an armed conflict for the purposes of the applicability of international humanitarian law.20"