Detention and Treatment of “Enemy Belligerents”
Legislative Action and Court Decisions
Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Congress passed the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), which granted the president the authority “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those … [who] planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks” against the United States. Soon thereafter, President George W. Bush issued a military order formulating guidelines for the detention and treatment of foreign belligerents captured in the “war on terror” and establishing military commissions to try some detainees for violations of the law of war. Overview Beginning in early 2002, the United States began transferring suspected foreign belligerents captured…