Judging Justice: Laws of War, Human Rights, and the Military Commissions Act of 2006

Congressional hearings were held throughout the summer of 2006 on the appropriate procedures for the military commissions, as Congress and the White House sought to establish standards that would represent a so-called ?middle ground? for trying terror suspects. After much debate, these hearings culminated in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), which President Bush signed into law on October 17, 2006. It is the legality of this Act under international law that is the focus of this chapter, which argues that the standards it establishes for the trial of ?enemy combatants,? though a moderate improvement over the 2001 Presidential Military Order (PMO), continue to violate in significant respects both international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights law (HRL). It adopts the position that any interpretation of rights and duties during periods of armed conflict must refer to both human rights and humanitarian law. Keywords: armed conflict; enemy combatants; human rights law (HRL); international humanitarian law (IHL); international law; laws of war; Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA); Presidential Military Order (PMO); terror suspects