In the face of international opposition, the US administration is continuing to prepare to conduct trials by military commissions. In the week of 23 August, preliminary hearings are due to be held in the cases of four men in custody in the US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. They have been charged under the Military Order on the Detention, Treatment and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism signed by President Bush in November 2001. Those held under the Order can be tried by military commission, whose verdicts cannot be appealed in any court.
