War Room - Salon.com - SCOTUS

War Room - Salon.com

Recently, I wrote something about why the Geneva Conventions (also here) are important, and why they need to be applied to combatants in all armed conflicts, including the one we are currently in. Go here for the original post, sparked off by a discussion I was having in one of my Yahoo groups at the time.

It’s somewhat heartening to hear the SCOTUS agree with me on the status of prisoners in the war on terror. John Paul Stevens, at least, seems to agree that the status granted under Geneva is relevant at LEAST to the trials of those detained at Guantanamo. Its hard for me to find reason to allow Geneva in one instance, but not in another, and so if Geneva applies to these prisoner’s trials, it seems clear it should also apply to their detention and treatment during said detention.

None of this goes as far as I did … essentially, I think recognizing Geneva is a human rights issue, and that the kind of conflict is irrelevant to status. The reason for the conventions is about recognizing the need to treat all humans in a certain basic way, and about recognizing the inherent value in simply being human. The SCOTUS decision doesn’t go nearly this far ofc, but that’s far too much to ask … just seeing SCOTUS recognize that Geneva applies to people captured in this conflict was a helluva first step, IMO.

License

This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.