Bush plan would subject members of Congress to war crimes prosecution

[Rose Siding]

JURIST Guest Columnist Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that minimum due process guarantees under customary international law must not be denied when Congress attempts to articulate forms of procedure for new US military commissions...

Members of Congress are thus on notice that minimum due process guarantees under customary international law must not be denied when Congress attempts to articulate what forms of procedure a military commission should adopt. If members participate in a plan to do so or are complicit in the deprivation of minimum due process guarantees under customary international law incorporated by reference in common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions or any other rights or protections under common Article 3 (e.g., concerning the right to humane treatment even at the hands of CIA interrogators), they would be participating in the denial of rights, protections, and duties under Geneva law. Such denials are war crimes.

Moreover, “wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the ... Convention” constitutes a more egregious “grave breach” of Geneva law. Denial of what the world knows are minimum due process requirements would also resonate against us like the crimes at Abu Ghraib and the Administration’s criminal torture memos and authorizations.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/09/plea-to-congress-on-military.php

via kos diary
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/16/101733/273