By Tom Parker, Policy Director, (Counter) Terrorism and Human Rights
Yesterday's blog post on preventative detention conflated two important contributions to this debate: Prof. Matthew Waxman’s July 2008 article Administrative Detention: The Integration of Strategy and Legal Process (an updated version of which can be found in the Journal of National Security Law and Policy) and Benjamin Wittes and Colleen Peppard’s paper Designing Detention: A Model Law for Terrorist Incapacitation published last Friday.
We understand from administration sources that these two works have been very influential in shaping White House thinking on this subject and they deserve a wide readership for their thoughtful approach to the challenges posed in reforming the detention regime in Guantanamo. However, despite the erudition of both these important publications, I should reiterate that Amnesty International USA's position remains implacably opposed to preventative detention in any form for these reasons outlined in my previous post.
For the record, I should also note that while Mr. Wittes is indeed a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, Prof. Waxman is Associate Professor of Law at Columbia and an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law and Security at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Interested readers may also wish to check out Mr Wittes' Washington Post op-ed written with the former Head of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, on the perils of pursuing preventative detention through executive order rather than congressional legislation.