This week, our Justice After Conflict series largely focused on conflicts the U.S. was not directly involved in. Today, we conclude the series with a look at the justice issues the U.S. created with prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
It's been three weeks since President Obama issued an Executive Order to close the detention center within a year. The order also gave the Obama Administration a year to review the cases of the roughly 240 detainees.
There are pro and cons to all Obama's options. He could try the prisoners in U.S. courts and detain them in U.S. facilities. U.S. Politicians are reluctant to allow detainees into their home states for criminal trials. Another solution is to revamp military commissions, but they may not appear much different than President Bush's "Camp Justice" procedures. Obama could create a new U.S. legal system under which detainees could be prosecuted, but that moves the U.S. into uncharted waters with full blown National Security Courts.
Detainees found innocent or not dangerous could return home or sent elsewhere. A few European countries have offered to take Guantanamo inmates, but this idea is unpopular among the electorate in those countries.
We spent the hour discussing the merits of the options before U.S.
Benjamin Wittesis Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He's written extensively on the challenges the Obama Administration faces in closing Guantanamo.
Marc Falkoffis an attorney for sixteen Guantanamo prisoners. He's also Assistant Professor at Northern Illinois University College of Law. Mark appeared with us in July, 2007 to discuss his collection of poems by Guantanamo Bay detainees entitled Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak.