FOREWORD: AFTER GUANTÁNAMO
Michael P. Scharf & Sonia Vohra
"Guantánamo Bay." To many around the world those two words conjure up haunting images of orange jumpsuit-clad detainees imprisoned behind barbed-wire fences, subjected to the cruelest imaginable interrogation techniques, and held indefinitely without trial, or awaiting trial before military commissions whose procedures violate international law. It is no surprise, then, that the new U.S. administration perceived the Guantánamo Bay detention center and associated detainee policies as an indelible stain on America's moral authority and an impediment to the success of future U.S. foreign policy.
Thus, on the first Monday of his presidency, January 22, 2009,
President Barak Obama signed Executive Orders requiring the closure of
the Guantánamo Bay facility within twelve months, the dismantling of the
CIA's network of secret prisons around the globe, and the prohibition on the
CIA's use of coercive interrogation methods that deviate from the requirements
of the Army Field Manual.
In his first speech to the U.N. on September 23, 2009, President
Obama observed, "I took office at a time when many around the world had
come to view America with skepticism and distrust." To sustained applause
he said,
The Executive Order on Interrogations
specifically prohibits . . .
42 CASE W. RES. J. INT’L L. 1 (2009).
