Brief of Amicus Curiae International Human Rights Organizations

The detention and military commission systems created by the Executive to hold and try persons seized in the “war on terror” and implemented at the United States Naval Station in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba (“Guantánamo”) violate the well-established norms of international humanitarian law embodied in binding treaties and customary international law. The 1949 Geneva Conventions afford persons held in military custody individual primary rights that are enforceable under the Supremacy Clause and by means of a
writ of habeas corpus. These well-established protections are also independently enforceable in federal court as binding rules of customary international humanitarian law. The United States has misguidedly departed from these fundamental guarantees.