June 29, 2006

Supreme Court Rules that the Geneva Convention Applies to the Conflict with Al Qaeda

Check out SCOTUSblog for slip opinions and analysis. This is, indeed, huge.

I'm hoping to find time to read the opinions this weekend and provide my own uninformed hare-brained analysis, but for now here's a quick observation. Based on the syllabus it seems like the Court could have stopped at the statutory interpretation holding -- that the military tribunals aren't authorized by Congress under current law, and are therefore illegal. The fact that they went on to consider the Geneva Convention issue at all, let alone determine that its provisions are judicially enforceable and applicable to the Al Qaeda conflict (reversing the D.C. Circuit on both points), is very surprising.

Posted by hb at June 29, 2006 08:19 AM

Comments

I saw this take down of the dissenting judges opinions and thought of you.

http://unspeak.net/C226827506/E20060629210303/index.html

Posted by: Tommaso Sciortino on June 29, 2006 06:44 PM

i love that the majority actually considered geneva! we are a party to it, so um, we should be following that law. treaties are *supposed* to be right up there with federal law.

Posted by: meish on July 1, 2006 11:21 AM

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