Guantánamo detainee Djamel Ameziane has complained to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) that his 6-and-1/2-year-detention at Camp Delta, without charge or judicial review, violates several rights protected by the 1948 American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, to which the US is a party. The US has also recognized the IACHR, though is not in the habit of listening when it suggests that the US is violating the Declaration. As Beth Van Schaack pointed out, the Commission has several times reiterated precautionary measures that have gone unheeded with respect to US detention of "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo, CSRT proceedings and refoulement of prisoners. Like the proceedings seeking those measures, Ameziane's complaint was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR): since the Supreme Court's June 2008 ruling in Boumediene v. Bush recognizing Guantanamo detainees' right to challenge their detention, "neither Mr. Ameziane nor any other Guantánamo detainee has yet had a hearing on the merits of his case." Under such circumstances, Ameziane may well satisfy the IACHR procedural rule requiring exhaustion of domestic remedies, except where unavailable as a matter of fact or law, i.e., where domestic legislation doesn't afford due process of law or the petitioner has been denied access to or prevented from exhausting the remedies that do exist, or where there has been unwarranted delay. Given the lack of attention the US has paid to the IACHR throughout the "war on terror," a decision in favor of Ameziane might be for naught. But what if the president who takes office in January decides to provide hope even to Guantanamo detainees and introduce real change, that is, follow IACHR recommendations?
