Guantanamo Bay - A legal limbo (HoL)

Speech by Baroness Ludford delivered to House of Lords on Thu 3rd Apr 2003

My Lords, can the Minister clarify the prisoner of war situation?

He has been largely reassuring about the situation of British detainees, although he spoke of how they would be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva conventions until proved otherwise. Under what mechanism would it be decided that such prisoners were not prisoners of war but unlawful combatants? What would happen to people who are classified as unlawful combatants? I do not believe that he has clarified what he understands the situation to be, and what assurances he has received from the United States about the status of their detainees.

There have been worrying press comments about whether they intend to treat all their detainees as prisoners of war. We are all concerned about the precedent of Guantanamo Bay, as people there have been in a legal limbo for over 15 months, including a number of British citizens, without apparent protest or action by the British Government.

One would not want people to go into the same kind of legal limbo without due process of charge and trial or treatment as prisoners of war under the Geneva conventions. Can the Minister clarify what assurances there have been from the United States?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I cannot accept the premise of the noble Baroness that the situation at Guantanamo Bay is as she describes it. I understand that no one from Iraq is there at present, although I may be wrong about that. The US assure us—I have no reason to disbelieve them—that the detainees there are being treated humanely and in accordance with the principles of the Geneva conventions—that is important.

British officials have visited those prisoners on four occasions and found them to be in a "generally satisfactory condition". We are not prepared to accept that people held in Guantanamo Bay necessarily suffer lower standards than anywhere else.

On the first question posed by the noble Baroness, if and when we decide that people are not prisoners of war in the strict sense—I have already answered the question—we shall deal with them under basic humanitarian law.