Military Tribunals: A Sorry History

In: Presidential studies quarterly: official publication of the Center for the Study of the Presidency, Band 33, Heft 3, S. 484-508

Abstract

After 9/11, President George W. Bush authorized the creation of military tribunals to try those who assisted in the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC. His military order closely tracked the model established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who appointed a military tribunal in 1942 to try eight German saboteurs. In Ex parte Quirin (1942), the Supreme Court unanimously upheld Roosevelt's tribunal. The Bush administration relies heavily on this judicial precedent, but military tribunals in U.S. history have generally been hostile to civil liberties, procedural due process, and elementary standards of justice.