by Mike Whitney

When Senate hearings convene this week for Supreme Court candidate John Roberts, let's hope that they focus on the hunger strike taking place at Guantanamo Bay. It was Robert's ruling in Rumsfeld vs. Hamdan that hastened a massive 200-man hunger strike that is now in its second month and has hospitalized at least 15 inmates. The prisoners are demanding that they be given the opportunity to challenge the terms of their detention in a court of law, a principle that Roberts does not support. He ruled in the Hamdan case that the President was not constrained by international law and that "the Geneva Conventions do not create judicially enforceable rights." Roberts ignores the fact that the United States is a signatory of the Geneva Conventions and must comply with its provisions for the humane treatment of prisoners as well as offering prisoners the Convention's protection "until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal." Rumsfeld's handpicked military courts do not meet these requirements, and have been rejected by prominent legal organizations and human rights groups alike....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Whitney0912.htm