31 July 2008

Enemy Combatants and U. S. Courts

by Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel (Editors)

From the publisher:
The Enemy Combatants Papers presents the five major enemy combatant cases of the post-9/11 era. Presented in narrative form, these original documents tell the story that clarifies the questions at the heart of the American detention of alleged combatants in the war on terror. These documents discuss the right to counsel, the right to a trial, the right for the accused to see the evidence against him, and the intersection between domestic and international law. The book highlights the tension between the needs of national security and the liberties allotted to alleged enemies of the state by highlighting the basic question of what the U.S. Constitution guarantees and to whom. In these documents, the reader can follow the evolving arguments about presidential powers in time of war, habeas corpus, the Geneva Conventions, balance of powers, and matters of detention and prisoner treatment. Complemented with a comprehensive timeline and appendices that include the relevant cases from the Civil War, World War II, and the Korean War and the premises for setting up military commissions and Combatant Status Review Tribunals, this book is meant for those who seek to understand the issues - legal, political, and military - that have dominated the search for balance between justice and security in the war on terror.

Karen J. Greenberg is the Executive Director of the Center on Law and Security. She is the editor of the NYU Review of Law and Security, co-editor of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib, and editor of the books Al Qaeda Now and The Torture Debate in America. She is a frequent writer and commentator on terrorism, international law, the war on terror, and detainee issues. Her work has been featured in the L.A. Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Nation, the American Prospect, and on major media outlets. Joshua Dratel is a practising attorney in New York City. He is past President of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Along with Major Dan Mori, Dratel assisted in the defense of Australian detainee David Hicks. He also defended al Qaeda member Wadih el Hage after the bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. Dratel has written articles on defending terrorism cases, including Ethical Issues in Defending a Terrorism Case: How Secrecy and Security Impair the Defense of a Terrorism Case and Ethical Issues in Defending a Terrorism Case: Stuck in the Middle. He is co-editor of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib. He received his B.A. from Columbia College and his law degree from Harvard Law School.