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Guantánamo is an account of political journalist Ellen Ray’s interviews of human rights lawyer Michael Ratner. Using an almost narrative technique, Guantánamo discusses a complex developing human rights issue in a way that is accessible to the average reader.
The first part of the book is arguably the most illuminating. Michael Ratner’s experience at Guantánamo Bay in its former incarnation as an HIV camp for Haitian refugees makes him knowledgeable about how this so-called “legal black hole” came into existence. Ratner’s explanation (in response to Ray’s questions) of how the United States established a lease for Guantánamo from Cuba seems hard to believe. Under the terms of the Platt Agreement, the lease can only be terminated by “mutual assent.” Thus, although Cuba has not agreed to the lease, and has not accepted rent payments since 1959, the United States retains the lease because it chooses to do so. Second, the lease contains a provision that gives the United States “complete jurisdiction and control over the territory,” but “recognizes the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba.” This provision lies at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have applied unique standards in assessing the actions of the U.S. government with respect to Guantánamo detainees. In the arguments that were pending before the Supreme Court at the time of the book’s publication, the U.S. government invoked these clauses to argue that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction over Guantánamo detainees because Guantánamo is under the sovereignty of Cuba, but that Cuba has no authority as to what goes on in Guantánamo because the United States has complete jurisdiction over it.
The second half of Chapter One is timely in light of recent changes within the Bush Administration—namely, the resignation of Colin Powell as secretary of state and the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the position of attorney general. Ratner describes the argument between Gonzales and Powell over whether the Geneva Conventions apply to Guantánamo detainees. Gonzales’s memo to the President argued that the Geneva Conventions do not apply. He further advised that President Bush has the constitutional power to take such a position. Ratner describes the memo as “the beginning of the end of the rule of law” with regard to Guantánamo detainees. Powell’s dissenting advice stood in stark contrast. According to Ratner, the fact that the President did not heed Secretary Powell’s warnings seems, in hindsight, to have been a sign of things to come. Finally, this first Chapter demystifies the term “enemy combatant.” Ratner first describes the origin and current usage of “enemy combatant.” During this explanation, he references the recurring theme throughout the book: the rights of Guantánamo detainees are bestowed and retracted entirely at the discretion of the President, in the name of the security of the American people and the War on Terror.
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Chapter Two deals with the interrogation, abuse, and torture of detainees while Chapter Three provides testimonial support for the allegations of mistreatment. With each passing day, news reports render the claims put forth in these chapters less surprising and less subject to dispute, but no less shocking to the conscience. Nonetheless, the impact of this section of the book is likely to diminish over time, as the general public grows more and more accustomed to hearing stories of prisoner abuse from the testimonies of detainees, such as those recently released without charge to Britain and Australia.
The final Chapter turns to the standards that the Supreme Court applies to military tribunals. Once again, Ratner asserts that the Supreme Court has allowed Guantánamo’s unique and contradictory legal status to trump other human rights considerations. He states that if the detainees really were captured in “war,” then the Laws of War apply. If not, then criminal law and human rights standards apply. Yet the Bush Administration’s policy on the trial of detainees suggests a third alternative in which neither the standards of the Geneva Conventions nor of criminal law apply to enemy combatants. Ratner’s argument against military tribunals as a means for trying the detainees is that this “third way” does not have any legitimate basis in law and does not include the proper safeguards for detainees that exist under domestic and international human rights law.
Perhaps the most important contribution of the book is the compilation of government documents in the comprehensive appendix. Should anyone reading Guantánamo be skeptical that Ratner’s view is a leftist distortion of the arguments put forth by the Bush Administration, the appendix of governmental documents should provide a succinct rebuttal. Ironically, it seems that the significance of the appendices’ role in this regard will also diminish over time, as the evidence coming to light through the news media gives the evidence of mistreatment in Guantánamo additional credibility.
—Rebecca J. Hamilton
HLSHRJ@law.harvard.edu
This file was last modified: Wednesday, 03-Aug-2005 10:53:32 EDT