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The Representation of Guantánamo Bay Detainees: Personal Experiences
Three attorneys from three different professional backgrounds will share the legal, ethical, and practical challenges that they have faced in their representation of Guantánamo Bay detainees. One attorney works for a non-profit human rights advocacy group; one works for a private law firm and represents Kuwaiti detainees; and one is U.S. appointed military counsel for one of the detainees. All three have been outspoken critics of the legal procedures instituted by the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act including the use of hearsay and coerced statements against detainees in military hearings, and the lack of habeus corpus review in federal court. The attorneys will discuss the Supreme Court ruling in Boumediene v. Bush (June 2008), and the future challenges they face.
Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne R. Bradley is the Assistant Staff Judge Advocate for the 514th Air Mobility Wing, McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey. She is a graduate of Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and Notre Dame Law School in South Bend, Indiana where she earned a Juris Doctorate decree.
After law school Lieutenant Colonel Bradley joined the Air Force Judge Advocate General (JAG) Program. She was initially stationed at Travis AFB, California and later transferred to Hickam AFB, Hawaii. She received an Honorable Discharge after six years of active duty service. A year after her Honorable Discharge from active duty, Lieutenant Colonel Bradley joined the Air Force Reserves.
After her active duty military service, Lieutenant Colonel Bradley worked with the Pennsylvania Capital Resource Center and later the Federal Defender Capital Habeus Corpus Unit representing and assisting indigent Pennsylvania death row inmates through the state and federal appeals process.
Currently, Lieutenant Colonel Bradley is a sole practitioner in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Her general law practice handles chiefly criminal defense and family law cases. Lieutenant Colonel Bradley is also an adjunct part-time legal/paralegal instructor at a local community college.
In November 2005, Lieutenant Colonel Bradley was appointed as military defense counsel for Guantánamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed.
Lieutenant Colonel Bradley is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar. She was awarded the Delaware County Pro Bono attorney for 2007. She is admitted to practice law before the United States Circuit Court (Third Circuit), United States District Court (Eastern District of Pennsylvania), and the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
Michael Ratner is President of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit legal organization. Michael Ratner was co-counsel in representing Guantánamo Bay detainees in the United States Supreme Court in Rasul v. Bush (2004) and Boumediene v. Bush (2008). His leadership in the arena of human rights continues to strengthen the role of the international rule of law to promote justice and oppose armed aggression. Over the last four decades CCR has lent its expertise and support to virtually every popular movement for social and racial justice. Since 9/11 CCR has spear-headed the struggle to restore the fundamental right of habeas corpus and continues to combat the illegal expansion of executive power and the American torture programs that have undermined fundamental rights in the name of the so-called "war on terror," by representing victims of torture, rendition and domestic spying. He is the author of many books and articles, including The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld A Prosecution by Book, Against War with Iraq and Guantánamo: What the World Should Know and the textbook, International Human Rights Litigation in U. S. Courts. He has taught law at Yale Law School and Columbia University Law School. Ratner is also the co-host of the popular radio program "Law and Disorder." The recipient of many honors, he was also included in The National Law Journal’s list of "100 of the Most Influential Lawyers in America." In 2007 he was honored with The Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship.
Thomas B. Wilner is Managing Partner, Shearman & Sterling LLP, International Trade and Global Relations Practice. He is located in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office.
During more than 35 years of practice, Mr. Wilner has represented private and governmental clients (including the governments of Mexico, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Switzerland, Kuwait, and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) in major cases before the U.S. courts, Congress, and the U.S. Executive Branch.
On May 1, 2002, Mr. Wilner filed a case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of detainees at Guantánamo Bay seeking basic due process. He was counsel of record to Guantánamo detainees in the cases of Rasul v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States, decided in June 2004, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees at Guantánamo Bay have the right to challenge the legality of their detentions in U.S. court under the federal habeus corpus statute. Following Congress’ repeal of the detainees’ right to habeas corpus under the statute, Mr.Wilner again petitioned the Supreme Court for relief. He was counsel of record to detainees in the cases of Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States decided on June 12, 2008, in which the Supreme Court held that the Guantánamo detainees’ right to habeas review of the legality of their detentions is protected by the U.S. Constitution. He has been to Guantánamo numerous times to meet with his clients.
Mr. Wilner received his B.A. from Yale University and his LL.B. from University of Pennsylvania Law School where he was editor of the Law Review. He was clerk to the Honorable William H. Hastie, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
The Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights will celebrate its 25th Anniversary on November 4 & 5.
A Reunion will be held for former and current faculty, Fellows and students, human rights activists, and friends and supporters of the Institute. In conjunction with the Reunion, the Urban Morgan Institute will award Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy the William J. Butler Human Rights Medal. On Friday evening November 4 a welcoming reception will be held for all attendees. On Saturday, November 5, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, the conference, Lawyers in Pursuit of Justice, will be held featuring Dr. Coomaraswamy; on Saturday evening attendees will gather for a formal dinner and presentation of the William J. Butler Medal at the National Underground Railroad Center.
The William J. Butler Human Rights Medal honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the human rights field. Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy served as the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women for nine years. In her reports to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights she has focused on violence in the family, violence in the community, violence against women during armed conflict, and the problem of international trafficking.
Dr. Coomaraswamy is the Director of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and she is the Chair of the Human Rights Commission for Sri Lanka. She is a member of the Global Faculty of the New York University School of Law and teaches a summer course at New College Oxford University. She has published widely, including two books, three co-edited books, and numerous articles on ethnic studies and the status of women. She has two forthcoming books: Born Free and Equal: Women’s International Human Rights, and Dharma and Conscience, a book on Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. Dr. Coomaraswamy is a graduate of the United Nations International School in New York, and received her B.A. from Yale University, her J.D. from Columbia University, and an LL.M. from Harvard University. She received an honorary degree from Amherst College. She is the sixth recipient of the William J. Butler Medal.
