interesting legal gymnastics

US Cites Exception to Torture Ban: McCain Law May Not Apply to Cuba Prison

According to the article, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 has the following provisions (among, I'm sure, many others):
1. No cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of detainees in US custody
2. Guantanamo Bay prisoners have access to US courts only (a) to appeal enemy combatant status determinations; and (b) to appeal convictions by military commissions.

The government is arguing that this makes the current torture case, of Mohammed Bawazir, unarguable, and that there is no legal basis for the court to intervene. Other lawyers, even from Human Rights Watch, agree that, as written, the law says you can't torture people at Guantanamo, but it also says you can't enforce that ban through the courts.

The article also reports that the method in question, which involves strapping detainees on hunger strike to restraint chairs and painfully force-feeding them through large nasal tubes, was used much more frequently after the Detainee Treatment Act was passed (though, to be fair, that information comes from the lawyer defending Bawazir and isn't corroborated).

Pretty clever, don't you think?


[EDIT: see the text of the Detainee Treatment Act here.]