There are news reports that over 100 of the 660 prisoners could soon be released from Guantanamo Bay, but that’s done little to mute criticism of the internment of fighters captured during the Afghan war. To the U.S. they are “illegal combatants” and can therefore be held and interrogated indefinitely without charge or legal representation.
Those defending the policy say this is a new war and new rules will inevitably be written in trying to contain the conflict. But lawyers, judges and human rights activists here and abroad say the men are being denied the very basics of justice, they see this military detention as ongoing evidence of American unilateralism…and a skirting of international law that’s governed the treatment of captives since World War Two.
Guests:
Viveca Novac, correspondent with Time Magazine
Ruth Wedgewood, Director of International Law and Organization Program at SAIS;
Jacquiline Bhabha, professor, Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government