Trying these men stateside would necessarily require the compromise of long-cherished principles of American law. Yet continuing to hold them without the prospect of a fair trial or delivering them to undemocratic governments are alternatives not worthy of the Obama administration or of the United States.
America’s own endeavors at Nuremberg offer a way out of this impasse: an international tribunal for detainees. Such a tribunal would allow the Obama administration to finally try these individuals and close down Guantánamo — and it would bring the nation back within the tradition of law and justice that it so forcefully defended six decades ago.
I like this idea. An international tribunal could be a really good compromise between those who would prefer that the Guantánamo detainees be tried by military tribunals and those that would like to see them tried as criminals in civilian courts. Granted, "The War on Terror" is pretty different from Mettraux's primary example, World War II, which had come to a clear end by the time of the Nuremberg Tribunals. However, his other examples, like the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals were created during the conflicts they were to address. The Lebanon tribunal is a good example of how terrorism would be addressed.
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