DeclinetoState
09-15-2006, 06:58 PM
JURIST Guest Columnist Jordan Paust (http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/main.asp?PID=34) of the University of Houston Law Center says that minimum due process guarantees under customary international law must not be denied when Congress attempts to articulate forms of procedure for new US military commissions...
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When considering legislation for military commissions, members of Congress should be careful not to open themselves to personal war crimes liability by denying the due process requirements incorporated in common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.
Justice Stevens, writing the opinion of the Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), warned that the military commission created by President Bush “lacks power to proceed because its structure and procedures violate the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions,” adding: “at least one provision of the Geneva Conventions ... applies,” common Article 3. Common Article 3, Justice Stevens emphasized, “prohibits ‘the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.’” More at JURIST (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/09/plea-to-congress-on-military.php)
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When considering legislation for military commissions, members of Congress should be careful not to open themselves to personal war crimes liability by denying the due process requirements incorporated in common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.
Justice Stevens, writing the opinion of the Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), warned that the military commission created by President Bush “lacks power to proceed because its structure and procedures violate the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions,” adding: “at least one provision of the Geneva Conventions ... applies,” common Article 3. Common Article 3, Justice Stevens emphasized, “prohibits ‘the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.’” More at JURIST (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/09/plea-to-congress-on-military.php)