unlawful combatants

[Justin Schwartz]

>On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Chuck Grimes wrote:
>
> > There was a question posted about where the term `unlawful combatants'
> > came from. I certainly wondered, and decided it was bullshit. Well,
> > that was wrong. It is cited in [several cites given]:
>
>But Chuck, isn't this all domestic US law?  The contention is that the
>term isn't in the Geneva convention nor in any other international treaty.
>And so that to use it, instead of POW, is to openly defy the Geneva
>convention.  Surely if China said their domestic law took precedent over
>the Geneva convention and human rights conventions -- especially in the
>matter of treatment of prisoners and standards of a fair trial -- we'd say
>that was an illegitimate legal position, no?
>
>
No. International treaties do not trump federal caselaw or statute. They are 
not aupremw, unlike constitutional. They are just laws. US courts may and do 
interpret such teeaties, and must reconcile conflicts between them. Whether 
this reconciliationj works, I wouldn't venture to say.

jks, esq.

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