[A jointly-written post by Bobby Chesney and Benjamin Wittes] Does the substantive scope of detention authority conferred by the Graham bill (S. 3037) “dramatically expand existing law,” as Steve Vladec...

The Second Circuit’s holding in Kiobel that plaintiffs cannot sue corporations under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) will, I predict, eventually be embraced by the Supreme Court.  But that will not end ATS ...

Steve Vladeck responds to Peter Margulies' latest comments on S. 3707: At the outset, it’s worth emphasizing that my concerns with S.

Peter Margulies, author of Law’s Detour: Justice Displaced in the Bush Administration, who previously offered these comments and these comments on S. 3707, weighs in on the bill’s mandatory stays to habe...

Just a brief follow-up on my earlier complaints about the "scorecard" approach to detainee litigation coverage. In this post from ten days back, I argued that--among its other problems--the press's tend...

I tried to take good notes at the Salahi oral argument this morning. The following is a crude summary of the argument, the transcript of which I will post when it becomes available. Bottom line: Expect a...

In an earlier post I noted that the defense in the Ghailani prosecution (involving a former GTMO detainee now on trial in New York in connection with the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings) seeks to preve...

A few days ago I argued that the Obama administration’s eschewal of the Bush administration Article II argument in its detention litigation was not as big a deal as it seemed.  Now I want to explain why ...

Kevin Jon Heller asks in response to my post the other night: 1. Politics aside, does the Obama administration have the legal right to kill an American citizen allegedly associated with Al-Qaeda who is l...

Don't miss this very interesting story from Charlie Savage on the argument going on within the administration concerning how to respond to the Al Aulaqi lawsuit. The story, which quotes both of my co-blo...

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has denied a habeas petition from Guantanamo detainee Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari (ISN 552). The opinion is not yet available. The public record of Al Kandari's CSRT and ...

Post-game analysis of the Ninth Circuit's en banc decision in Mohamed v.

I posted earlier a summary by Larkin Reynolds of the coming argument in Salahi v. Obama--which the D.C. Circuit is hearing on Friday. I also posted the briefs. I think this case is a big deal, one that s...

...and fortunately we don't usually get worked up about it.  That's not to say civilian criminal prosecution is always the right or only option.  Just a reminder that these cases do come up and don't hav...

It is now well known that the Obama administration has embraced almost all of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies without substantial modification.  One such policy is military detention ...

In his two responses (here and here) to Steve Vladeck's earlier post on S. 3707, Bobby has said, better than I could, much of what what I believe. What remains are a few isolated points of disagreement b...

Earlier today I posted some thoughts in response to Steve Vladeck's commentary on the Graham bill, focused on the question of which groups ought to fall within the scope of the government's authority to ...

An interesting aspect of the recent en banc decision in Jeppesen is the court’s reliance on the new Obama administration internal procedures to support its “independent conclusion . . .