Guantánamo Bay, the Rise of the Courts and the Revenge of Politics

THE LONG DECADE: HOW 9/11 HAS CHANGED THE LAW, David Jenkins, Anders Henriksen & Amanda Jacobsen, eds., Oxford University Press, 2012

10 Pages Posted: 4 Dec 2011 Last revised: 28 Jan 2013

See all articles by Fiona de Londras

Fiona de Londras

Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, UK; ANU College of Law

Date Written: April 4, 2012

Abstract

Although a core part of Barak Obama’s election platform, the closure of Guantánamo Bay has proven more difficult to bring about than anticipated. This difficulty has primarily emanated from the persistent opposition to closure found within the United States Congress and given practical effect through legislative measures that make closure difficult, if not impossible. Understanding this divergence between Executive policy and Congressional preferred outcomes in the national security arena requires us to ask a simple question, which lies at the core of this paper: is Congress acting in a purely political or a politically constitutionalist manner? In other words, is this merely a question of politics or is Congress using Guantánamo Bay as the site upon which to sketch its vision of the appropriate relationship between different organs of government? That question takes on an added level of resonance in the context of Guantánamo Bay because of the series of US Supreme Court cases making it clear that the detention centre there is subject to law and, more specifically, to constitutional and constitutionalist limits. In this short essay, I address this question and argue that, rather than communicating a grand constitutional message, Congressional obstructionism in this context is politics as usual and should be understood as such.

Keywords: Guantanamo Bay, Obama, War on Terror, Constitutionalism, Politics

JEL Classification: K10

Suggested Citation

de Londras, Fiona, Guantánamo Bay, the Rise of the Courts and the Revenge of Politics (April 4, 2012). THE LONG DECADE: HOW 9/11 HAS CHANGED THE LAW, David Jenkins, Anders Henriksen & Amanda Jacobsen, eds., Oxford University Press, 2012, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1968127

Fiona De Londras (Contact Author)

Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, UK ( email )

Edgbaston
Birmingham, AL B15 2TT
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/law/staff/profile.aspx?ReferenceId=99740

ANU College of Law ( email )

Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601
Australia

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