Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2009
Abstract
The Supreme Court held in Boumediene v. Bush that Guantánamo detainees have a constitutional right to habeas corpus review of their detention, but it left to district courts in the first instance responsibility for working through the appropriate standard of proof and related evidentiary principles imposed on the government to justify continued detention. This article argues that embedded in seemingly straightforward judicial standard-setting with respect to proof and evidence are significant policy questions about competing risks and their distribution. How one approaches these questions depends on the lens through which one views the problem: through that of a courtroom concerned with evidence or through that of a battlefield clouded by imperfect intelligence. All three branches of government should play significant roles in answering these questions, which are critical to establishing sound detention policy.
Disciplines
Human Rights Law | International Law | Law | Military, War, and Peace
Recommended Citation
Matthew C. Waxman,
Guantánamo, Habeas Corpus, and Standards of Proof: Viewing the Law Through Multiple Lenses,
42
Case W. Res. J. Int'l L.
245
(2009).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1615