CIAO DATE: 9/07
Culture and Conflict: Volume 56 (Winter 2005)
William Bourdon is the lawyer of the two French men detained at Gantanamo and who are since their transfer to France in July 2004 detained for « terrorist activities ». In this interview he refers to the outstanding events and the judicial decisions that have had an impact on the Guantanamo file, in France and internationally. He details the judicial and political stakes on the arbitrary detention in the American camp by showing how it was fed by the suspension of some fundamental dispositions of International Law as well as a certain number of constitutive principles of the right to a fair trial. He thereby shows the erosion of the principle of the independence of the judges engendered by the use of the argument of fight against terrorism since September 11th. Yet he does not omit to emphasize that the judges still can resist to these practices of exception.