Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Collision: a Study of the Case of Omar Khadr, a Child Soldier Detained at Guantanamo
Draft of January 9, 2012 Omar Khadr: Domestic and International Litigation Strategies for a Child in Armed Conflict Santa Clara University School of Law Symposium February 2012 Richard J. Wilson * Myers: I would say, despite their age, these are very, very dangerous people. So they may be juveniles, but they're not on a little-league team anywhere, they're on a major league team, and it's a terrorist team. Rumsfeld: This constant refrain of ‘the juveniles,’ as though there’s a hundred children in there — these are not children. Dick Myers responded to that. 1 *** As this discussion establishes, ‘[o]ur history is replete with laws and judicial recognition’ that children cannot be viewed simply as miniature adults. 2 *** One of my motivations in seeking a reasonable resolution of the case is that, as a juvenile at the time of his capture, Jawad should have been segregated from the adult detainees, and some serious attempt made to rehabilitate him. I am bothered by the fact that this was not done. I am a resolute Catholic and take as an article of faith that justice is defined as reparative and restorative, and that Christ's most radical pronouncement - command, if you will - is to love one's enemies.3 <> * Richard J. Wilson is Professor of Law and Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at American University’s Washington College of Law. He thanks his clinic students for their unending support for, and dedication to the cause of Omar Khadr. He also wishes to thank Dean Claudio Grossman for his unswerving support for this important work, as well as summer research support.
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