An unlawful combatant, illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a person who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war and therefore is claimed not to be protected by the Geneva Conventions. The International Committee of the Red Cross points out that the terms "unlawful combatant", "illegal combatant" or "unprivileged combatant/belligerent" are not defined in any international agreements. While the concept of an unlawful combatant is included in the Third Geneva Convention, the phrase itself does not appear in the document. Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention does describe categories under which a person may be entitled to prisoner of war status. There are other international treaties that deny lawful combatant status for mercenaries and children.
Combatant is the legal status of a person entitled to directly participate in hostilities during an armed conflict, and may be intentionally targeted by an adverse party for their participation in the armed conflict. Combatants are not afforded immunity from being directly targeted in situations of armed conflict. The legal definition of "combatant" is found at article 43(2) of Additional Protocol I (AP1) to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It states that "Members of the armed forces of a Party to a conflict are combatants, that is to say, they have the right to participate directly in hostilities." Consequently, on the other hand combatants, as a rule, are legal targets themselves for the opposite side regardless the specific circumstances at hand, in other words, they can be attacked regardless of the specific circumstances simply due to their status, so as to deprive their side of their support.
Enemy combatant is a person who, either lawfully or unlawfully, engages in hostilities for the other side in an armed conflict. Usually enemy combatants are members of the armed forces of the state with which another state is at war. In the case of a civil war or an insurrection "state" may be replaced by the more general term "party to the conflict".
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz after U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Rasul v. Bush and were coordinated through the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants.
Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States, in the context of the early twenty-first century War on Terrorism, refers to foreign nationals the United States detains outside of the legal process required within United States legal jurisdiction. In this context, the U.S. government is maintaining torture centers, called black sites, operated by both known and secret intelligence agencies. Such black sites were later confirmed by reports from journalists, investigations, and from men who had been imprisoned and tortured there, and later released after being tortured until the CIA was comfortable they had done nothing wrong, and had nothing to hide.
In the practice of international law, command responsibility is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes, whereby a commanding officer (military) and a superior officer (civil) is legally responsible for the war crimes and the crimes against humanity committed by his subordinates; thus, a commanding officer always is accountable for the acts of commission and the acts of omission of his soldiers.
Adil Kamil Abdullah Al Wadi is a citizen of Bahrain who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. Al Wadi's Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 60. American intelligence analysts estimate that Al Wadi was born in 1964, in Muharraq, Bahrain.
Abdullah Mujahid is a citizen of Afghanistan who is still held in extrajudicial detention after being transferred from United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba — to an Afghan prison.
Ahmed Adil is a citizen of China who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps in Cuba.
Sami Abdul Aziz Salim Allaithy Alkinani is an Egyptian professor who was held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 287. Analysts reported that he was born on October 28, 1956, in Shubrakass Egypt. He was repatriated to Egypt on September 30, 2005. He was later classified by the United States Department of Defense as a no longer enemy combatant.
Faris Muslim al Ansari is a citizen of Afghanistan who was seventeen years old when captured and held in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 253. American intelligence analysts estimate that Al Ansari was born in 1984 in Mukala, Yemen.
Jawad Jabber Sadkhan is a citizen of Iraq who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. Sadkhan's Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 433.
Abdul Majid Muhammed is a citizen of Iran who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. The Act's stated purpose was "to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, and for other purposes".
No-Hearing Hearings (2006) is the title of a study published by Professor Mark P. Denbeaux of the Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall University School of Law, his son Joshua Denbeaux, and prepared under his supervision by research fellows at the center. It was released on October 17, 2006. It is one of a series of studies on the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the detainees, and government operations that the Center for Policy and Research has prepared based on Department of Defense data.
The Combatant Status Review Tribunal the US Department of Defense commissioned, like the tribunals described in Army Regulation 190-8, which they were modeled after, were three member panels, led by a tribunal president.
Military Police: Enemy Prisoners of War, Retained Personnel, Civilian Internees and Other Detainees is the full title of a United States Army regulation usually referred to as AR 190-8, that lays out how the United States Army should treat captives.
Every Administrative Review Board, run under the authority of the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants, was commanded by a Presiding Officer.
Initially the Bush Presidency asserted that they did not have to release any of the Guantanamo captive's documents. They asserted that no captive apprehended in Afghanistan was entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention, and that those held in the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base were not protected by US law either, because it was not on US territory.
The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term Geneva Convention usually denotes the agreements of 1949, negotiated in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939–1945), which updated the terms of the two 1929 treaties and added two new conventions. The Geneva Conventions extensively define the basic rights of wartime prisoners, civilians and military personnel, established protections for the wounded and sick, and provided protections for the civilians in and around a war-zone.
