Vol. 40, No. 3 (2009)
Vol. 40, Nos. 1 & 2 (2008)
Vol. 39, No. 3 (2007-08)
Vol. 39, Nos. 1 & 2 (2006-07)
Vol. 38, Nos. 3 & 4 (2006-07)
International Justice and Shifting Paradigms
Vol. 38, No. 2 (2006-07)
Vol. 38, No. 1 (2006)
Vol. 37, Nos. 2 & 3 (2006)
FOREWORD: SECURITY DETENTION
Michael P. Scharf & Gwen Gillespie
In an effort to restore American integrity around the world—which has been shattered by the abuses of detainees at American military bases in Abu Ghraib, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba—President Barack Obama has pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. The Guantanamo Bay prison is symbolic of the fundamental controversy associated with security detention: when is a state justified in depriving a person of their liberty in order to protect itself from a potential threat to its national security?
While explained as a necessary component of the fight against terrorism, security detention—holding people without charging them with a crime— can violate fundamental American notions of liberty and the rule of law. Detainees often lack basic procedural rights, such as access to lawyers, to contest their detention and secure their release. Although western democracies such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, justify the minimal procedural protections on grounds of national security, these same governments rarely offer more than a cursory explanation as to why a given detainee constitutes such a threat.
In recognition of its extreme nature, security detentions were traditionally reserved only for times of armed conflict—referred to as interment in this context. However, states have increasingly begun to practice administrative detention—the peacetime equivalent of interment—in response to terrorism. Recognizing world-wide concern over growing use of security detention, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University organized a two-day experts meeting on security detention. During this meeting, experts from governments, NGOs, academia, and the ICRC shared their thoughts and ideas regarding the legal and practical issues associated with the practice.
40 CASE W. RES. J. INT’L L. 315 (2009).
