Comment & Debate
“Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Civil and Political Rights. Situation of detainees at Guantánamo Bay”. United Nations Economic and Social Council. February 15, 2006 – “Many of the detainees held at Guantánamo Bay were captured in places where there was – at the time of their arrest – no armed conflict involving the United States. The case of the six men of Algerian origin detained in Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 2001 is a well-known and well-documented example,24 but also numerous other detainees have been arrested under similar circumstances where international humanitarian law did not apply. The legal provision allowing the United States to hold belligerents without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities can therefore not be invoked to justify their detention.”