USA: Human rights, the missing ingredient for closing Guantánamo

Index Number: AMR 51/001/2013
Date Published: 8 January 2013
Categories: USA

The USA’s failure to fulfil President Barack Obama’s first-term promise to close the Guantánamo detention facility was the predictable result of its failure to adhere to its legally binding international human rights obligations. Without a genuine and substantive change in approach, one that applies international human rights law and principles, the Guantánamo detentions or some relocated version of them will remain part of the USA’s legal landscape throughout President Obama’s second term, and beyond.