Leading University of Texas Law School Clinic Assists with Arguments to be Heard by US Supreme Court in Landmark Guantanamo Bay Detainee Case

Business Wire, Dec 3, 2007

Litigation Surrounding Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States to Set Precedents in Constitutional, Human Rights, and Humanitarian Law

AUSTIN, Texas -- The US Supreme Court will hear legal arguments that students and faculty from the University of Texas School of Law's National Security & Human Rights Clinic on December 5, 2007, helped draft in the consolidated cases of Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States. At the heart of the litigation are two questions: whether the Military Commissions Act validly strips the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detainees' right to habeas corpus and whether the detainees are entitled to due process under United States law and the Geneva Conventions.

Clinic students, under the supervision of internationally recognized Professors Kristine Huskey and Derek Jinks, assisted on the briefs in the consolidated cases Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. U.S., which challenge the legality of the Military Commissions Act. Following the oral arguments that will be heard on December 5, the Supreme Court will decide whether detainees at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detentions through habeas corpus in federal court.

Launched in August, the newly created National Security & Human Rights Clinic is one of a handful of law school clinics that directly represents detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and has emerged as the leading law school clinic involved in this ground-breaking case before the Supreme Court. The clinic was formed to undertake legal cases and projects that address some of the deeper legal problems that arise as a result of the "war on terror." The objective of the clinic is to teach students how to be principled practitioners in the realm of national security and human rights, and to impart lessons about contributing to the legal community and to society.

"The clinic's goal with these current cases is to uphold the fundamental founding principals of the United States Constitution, and the students and faculty have benefited enormously by actively participating in the ongoing legal debate about striking the right balance between the imperatives of security and liberty," said Kristine Huskey, director, National Security & Human Rights Clinic and a clinical professor at the University of Texas School of Law. "Students, guided by our faculty, are learning first-hand and actively participating in the debate about the principles that form the core of our legal system: laws that protect individual rights, habeas corpus, and fairness and justice under US and international law."

About Professor Kristine Huskey

Huskey recently joined the School of Law from American University's Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C., where she taught in the International Human Rights Law Clinic and represented Omar Khadr, the young Canadian currently being tried for war crimes under the Military Commissions Act. Before that, she was an attorney in the international litigation and arbitration practice group at Shearman & Sterling LLP, representing primarily international entities. Huskey has been representing Guantanamo detainees since 2002 and was part of the legal team in Rasul v. Bush, which went before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004 and won the right of the detainees to challenge their detentions in federal court. She has been to Guantanamo over a dozen times to meet with clients.

About Professor Derek Jinks

Professor Jinks is a renowned international law scholar. Before joining the School of Law faculty in 2005, he worked in the prosecutor's office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and served as senior legal advisor and United Nations representative for the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre in India. Since 2006, he has been a member of the U.S. Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on International Law.

More information about the clinic can be found at http://www.utexas.edu/law/academics/clinics/nationalsecurity/