Camp X-ray: this unjust system

While supporting the crackdown on terrorists, Geoffrey Bindman calls on the government to uphold the rights of prisoners at Camp X-ray

The detainees at the US military's Camp X-ray in Cuba include UK citizens - there are believed to be six.

We do not know what efforts have been made by the British government to secure their release.

I recently raised the matter informally with the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith.

He indicated that something was being done but declined to say what.

The family of one British prisoner asked a High Court judge to declare as unlawful the government's failure to act effectively, but he refused.

Last week, the Court of Appeal gave leave to seek judicial review of that decision, but in general the courts will not intervene in matters of international diplomacy.

Today's transatlantic politics are far removed from the heyday of empire when Palmerston declared: 'As the Roman in days of old held himself free from indignity when he could say "civis Romanus sum", so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.'

The continued detention by the US of these men at Camp X-ray without charge or trial and without access to lawyers remains an affront to the values which underpin Anglo-American jurisprudence.

These men are entitled to expect their government to protest in the strongest possible terms.

In the view of the US administration, Guantanamo is legally a no-man's land.

It is not in US territory even though it is leased from Cuba by the US government; and neither the US Constitution nor any other US law applies there.

The Cuban courts have no jurisdiction.

Nor, it is claimed, does the Third Geneva Convention - adopted by the US and nearly all other states to ensure civilised treatment of prisoners of war - protect those seized in the war against terrorism.

The 5th amendment to the US Constitution provides, as explained in the celebrated Supreme Court case of Miranda v Arizona, 'prior to any questioning, the person detained must be warned that he has the right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used in evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney.' Prisoners at Camp X-ray are denied these rights.

Yet the aims of US policy - finding and punishing those responsible for the terrorist attacks of 11 September and minimising the prospect of additional attacks - are not only justified but vital.

Prosecution of those suspected of complicity in crimes against humanity is entirely appropriate for state authorities seeking to enforce the criminal law, even where the crimes have taken place outside their territory.

Much has already been done by the international community - most recently by those states (sadly not including the US) which have ratified the Rome treaty establishing the International Criminal Court - and by those (including the UK) which have gone at least some way towards giving their domestic courts universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity.

These measures offer hope of containing the war against terrorism within the framework of the rule of law.

Even from its own perspective the rejection of its own constitutional history by the US administration is paradoxical.

The need for co-ordinated international action was the obvious lesson of 11 September.

It has abandoned the rule of law both on the international and the domestic level in its treatment of the Camp X-ray prisoners.

However loyal our government may feel it must be to our American ally, the time has surely come for it to demand the immediate release of our imprisoned fellow citizens.

Geoffrey Bindman is the senior partner at London-based civil liberties specialist law firm Bindman & Partners