As Ben notes below, the Khairkhwa decision draws attention to the question whether the substantive scope of detention authority under the AUMF should be construed to extend to a person who is a member of...

Yesterday's release of the Khairkhwa decision prompts a few thoughts--and an update to the habeas data. The lengthy (79-page) opinion is an interesting document that, I suspect, will not have a profound...

For the benefit of reporters writing on the appointment of Brig. Gen. Mark Martins as chief prosecutor of the military commissions--and all others interested in the subject--here are links to the extraor...

The Defense Department announced today that Brigadier General Mark Martins, the commander of the Rule of Law Field Force-Afghanistan, will be the Chief Prosecutor in the Office of Military Commissions, b...

Politico's Josh Gerstein is reporting: A move by House Republicans to reauthorize the war on terror is unwise because it could foster perceptions that the U.S.

The D.C. district court has issued an opinion in the habeas case of Khairulla Said Wali Khairkhwa, an Afghan national and former senior Taliban official. Judge Ricardo Urbina denied his petition for a wr...

I promised earlier this week to explore the differences between the House and Senate language in their respective versions of the National Defense Authorization Act concerning retrictions on transfers of...

Last Friday I speculated on why Legal Advisor Harold Koh, a leading academic critic of presidential war unilateralism, supported President Obama’s constitutional arguments for the Libya intervention, as ...

The Anti-Libya Bill the House of Representatives will consider is here.  The Bill would cut off all funds for the Libya intervention except for specified support operations.  Unlike the Resolution floate...

Some time back, I spoke at a panel at Duke Law School on detention policy alongside, among others, Michael Gottlieb, who had just completed a fourteen month tour as the top civilian official in Task Forc...

I realize that the two Libya Resolutions being considered in the House are more for political than legal effect, but the Resolution that seeks to check the President's Libya intervention is an especially...

In response to my post earlier today on Senator McConnell's call for the defendants in the Kentucky-Iraq case to be transferred to GTMO, the  spokesman for DOJ's National Security Division (Dean Boyd) sh...

Lawfare readers may be interested in reading the two competing resolutions under consideration in the House this week. The first is a resolution requiring the President to withdraw U.S. forces from comb...

Senator McConnell has an op-ed in the Washington Post sharply criticizing the Obama administration for pursuing a civilian court prosecution of two Iraqi men who were arrested in Kentucky recently on cha...

The invaluable Steve Aftergood, over at Secrecy News, is reporting: Attorneys for New York Times reporter James Risen yesterday asked a court to quash a subpoena requiring him to testify in the case of f...

Senators Kerry and McCain, and eight other prominent Senators, introduced a Resolution on Libya today.  The Resolution authorizes the President “to continue the limited use of the United States Armed For...

A few weeks ago, Ben pointed out that two detainees had moved to drop their appeals, with their lawyer essentially calling the cases lost causes. Word comes today that the D.C.