| |
| author |
Brooke Winters
| | title |
It Don't GTMO Worse Than This: An Interpretive Examination of Language, Decision-making, and Jurisprudence of Due Process Rights at Guantanamo Bay
| | abstract |
It has nearly been twenty years since the Guantanamo Bay detention center (GTMO) was
established to detain individuals captured in the War on Terror. This thesis enters the
ongoing debate as to whether GTMO is an exceptional or administrative hyperlegal
space. Rather than conforming to the existing confines of this debate, this thesis asserts
that a new concept is needed to understand how due process has unfolded inside GTMO.
'Due process lite,' a concept that captures the erosion of substantial due process while
accounting for the introduction of the law as a result of the Supreme Court's
involvement, is the main contribution of this study. Due process lite is the result of
contestation between the three branches of government facilitating shifts between
exceptional and hyperlegal developments. This interpretive study uses a wide breadth of
materials to reach this conclusion, ranging from executive memos and orders,
Congressional legislation, Supreme Court and lower court cases, and detainee transcripts.
This thesis examines the rise of due process lite through the case study of Majid Khan,
who has been detained at GTMO since 2006. Majid Khan's case is highly indicative of
due process lite's consequences at the individual level, such as implications for how
torture is handled in military commissions and how detainees experience access to
counsel. Khan's case also reveals wider implications for due process, illustrating how it
can become less substantial over time.
| | school |
The College of Liberal Arts, Drew University
| | degree |
B.A. (2019)
|
| advisor |
Jinee Lokaneeta
|
| committee |
Sangay Mishra
Marie Pascal Pieretti
|
| full text | BWinters.pdf |
| |
