Editing Unlawful combatant (section)

====Combatant Status Review Tribunal====
{{Wikisource|Combatant Status Review Tribunal (fact sheet of 17 October 2006)}}

Following the ''Hamdan v. Rumsfeld''-ruling (November 2004) the Bush administration has begun using Combatant Status Review Tribunals to determine the status of detainees. By doing so the obligation under Article 5 of the GCIII was to be addressed.

However, critics maintain these CSRTs are inadequate to warrant acceptance as a competent tribunal. Their principal arguments are:
* The CSRT conducted rudimentary proceedings
* The CSRT afforded detainees few basic protections
* Many detainees lacked counsel
* The CSRT also informed detainees only of general charges against them, while the details on which the CSRT premised enemy combatant status decisions were classified.
* Detainees had no right to present witnesses or to cross-examine government witnesses.
Notable cases pointed to by critics as demonstrating the flawed nature of the procedure include: [[Mustafa Ait Idir]], [[Moazzam Begg]], [[Murat Kurnaz]], [[Feroz Abbasi]], and [[Martin Mubanga]]. A comment by legal experts states:

<blockquote>It appears ... that the procedures of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals do not qualify as status determination under the Third Geneva Convention. ... The fact that no status determination had taken place according to the Third Geneva Convention was sufficient reason for a judge from the District Court of Columbia dealing with a habeas petition, to stay proceedings before a military commission. Judge Robertson in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld held that the Third Geneva Convention, which he considered selfexecuting, had not been complied with since a Combatant Status Review Tribunal could not be considered a 'competent tribunal' pursuant to article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention.<ref>[http://www.utrechtlawreview.org/publish/articles/000003/article.pdf Guantánamo Bay: A Reflection On The Legal Status And Rights Of ‘Unlawful Enemy Combatants’] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060218001849/http://www.utrechtlawreview.org/publish/articles/000003/article.pdf |date=18 February 2006 }} [[PDF]] by Terry Gill and Elies van Sliedregt in the [http://www.utrechtlawreview.org/ Utrecht Law Review] or</ref></blockquote>

[[James Crisfield]], the legal advisor to the Tribunals, offered his legal opinion, that CSRT "do not have the discretion to determine that a detainee should be classified as a prisoner of war – only whether the detainee satisfies the definition of 'enemy combatant'".<ref name=ApCsrt>[http://wid.ap.org/documents/detainees/moazzambegg.pdf Moazzam Begg's dossier (.pdf)]{{Dead link|date=December 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, hosted by [[Associated Press]]</ref> Determining whether a captive should be classified as a prisoner of war is the sole purpose of a competent tribunal.

Analysis of these Tribunals by two lawyers for Guananamo detainees, Professor [[Mark P. Denbeaux]] of the [[Seton Hall University School of Law]], his son [[Joshua Denbeaux]], and some of his law students resulted in a report called ''[[No-hearing hearings]]''. In essence it supports the criticism voiced above.<ref name="No-hearing_hearings">[http://law.shu.edu/news/final_no_hearing_hearings_report.pdf No-hearing hearings] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090907190444/http://law.shu.edu/publications/guantanamoReports/final_no_hearing_hearings_report.pdf |date=7 September 2009 }} by, Mark Denbeaux, Professor, Seton Hall University School of Law and Counsel to two Guantanamo detainees, Joshua Denbeaux, Esq. and David Gratz, John Gregorek, Matthew Darby, Shana Edwards, Shane Hartman, Daniel Mann, Megan Sassaman and Helen Skinner
Students of Seton Hall University School of Law</ref><ref name="VillageVoice">
{{cite news
| url=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0650,hentoff,75255,2.html
| title=Bush's War Crimes Cover-up
| author=[[Nat Hentoff]]
| newspaper=[[The Village Voice]]
| date=8 December 2006
| access-date=2007-04-02
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080617075536/http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0650,hentoff,75255,2.html
| url-status=dead
| archive-date=2008-06-17
}}</ref>