I was reading about the lease we signed with Cuba over Guantanamo Bay and noticed that one of the terms was that the US can only use it as a Naval Base(and a coaling station, but that part is moot).
Does Camp X-ray and the suspected Terrorists we are holding there violate that term of the lease?
Under the terms of the first lease, signed in '03 by Presidents Palma and Roosevelt, The only restrictions placed on the United States are:
"(a) The area must be used only for a coaling and naval station (“station” here used in the broad sense of the word.)
(b) Vessels engaged in Cuban trade shall have free passage through the waters included in the grant." (from the Navy’s History of Guantanamo Naval Base)
Neither the Supplementary agreement of '03 nor the Treaty of 1934 altered either of these provisions, although they established the rent and terms for ending of the lease, and the exact area of the base.
Thus, it really depends on whether Cuban courts (or possibly the ICJ, should the Cubans attempt to pursue a case) determine the holding of non-naval prisoners not captured in the vicinity of the base to lay outside the bounds of a “naval station”.
Legal precedent regarding the status of prisoners on the base, as far as I can tell, extends only to Cuban criminals taking refuge on the base, and being bound over, and vice versa.
If you wish to read the lease, supplementary agreement, and the Treaty of 1934 you may do so here http://www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/gazette/History_98-64/hisapxd.htm
It should be noted that the lease only terminates if the United States abandons the site, or by mutual consent of both Cuba and the US, so it is really a moot point as to whether the terms are/have/will be violated.
Your post indicates that you think that the lease can be terminated only by mutual consent, and that nothing that either party does makes any difference. This of course would be quite unusual. Both parties are bound by the terms of the lease, and if they violate the terms the counter part has a right to damages, specific performance, or termination of the lease, depending on the nature of the violation, and whether it can be reasonably corrected.
If, for example, the US refused to continue to pay rent, do you feel that they could not in law be evicted? Naturally there is the question of who could evict them, but the position of the US is that they do not hold the land by force but lawfully.
The prison was located in Guantanamo because the DoJ felt that location was a black hole legally. It did in fact delay legal review for many years. A permanent location for the arbitrary detention of people away from the purview of the legal system is not on the face of it a necessaryfunction for a Naval Base, nor could it be reasonably argued that such usage was contemplated in the original agreement.
It wasn’t just DOJ’s view. There were rulings by the 11th Circuit, arising from the Bush I and Clinton prison camps there, that held that Guantanamo was beyond the reach of the US Constitution. The Supreme Court denied review back then.
Ultimately, of course, when it did take a G’tmo case, it overturned the 11th Circuit rulings (which is why we now use Bagram to hold prisoners outside the reach of the federal courts).
I think the prison should be closed, but why does having a prison on a naval base mean that it is no longer a naval base? Seems to me that you could have a naval base with gas stations, prisons, grocery stores, post offices, airfields, movie theaters, schools, and many other institutions and buildings.
In the OPs view, what other types of buildings or functions would be inconsistent with a naval base?
If the Cubans believe we’re violating the terms of the lease, I fully encourage them to go ahead and try to evict us.
Yeah fuck you rest of the world.
Probably goes without saying, but since Castro considerers our occupation of Guantanamo illegal anyway and hasn’t even cashed our rent checks since 1959, any question of the U.S. violating its lease is pretty much academic at any rate.
Agreed. And why is it important that the prisoners aren’t naval prisoners or captured near Cuba? A naval base can be designated for any military purpose and it doesn’t have to have a nexus to Cuba.