Geneva Conventions

The Geneva Conventions are a series of four treaties and additional protocols, ratified in 1949 by 194 nations. The treaties extensively detail how prisoners, both military and civilian, should be treated during wartime. Generally speaking, in order to be in compliance with the Geneva Conventions a nation's prisoners must be free from physical and sexual abuse, their customs and religion must be respected, and the prisoners must be able to maintain reasonable level of human dignity while incarcerated. Prior to the War on Terror, the United States had traditionally held itself to a standard of human rights much higher that those set by the Geneva conventions. The United States had also advocated that other nations adopt a more humane level of treatment than those set by the conventions.

Following the September 11, 2001 bombings, the United States Department of Justice would formulate the an opinion stating that members of al-Qaeda and by extension insurgents in general were not covered by the Geneva conventions. John Yoo, an official in the justice department, would become an outspoken proponent of this theory and would eventually provide the legal justification for enhanced interrogation techniques. Yoo would work closely with the Office of the Vice President. In a memo to the White House in 2002, Yoo would assert that the Geneva convention did not cover the inflicting of physical pain, so long as physical pain did not result in serious injury, this memo would form the basis for enhanced interrogation techniques used in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at Guantanamo Bay. Yoo would also argue that the President of the United States was not bound by the War Crimes Act. Central to this theory was the idea that the Geneva Conventions should not cover unsanctioned insurgent groups, only soldiers of an opposing nation. In 2002, President George W. Bush would determine that insurgents would be treated as unlawful enemy combatants, hence that they were not entitled to the rights of the Geneva convention.