Enemy combatant is a person who, either lawfully or unlawfully, engages in hostilities for the other side in an armed conflict. Usually enemy combatants are members of the armed forces of the state with which another state is at war. In the case of a

civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

or an

insurrection Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority. A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation and ...

"state" may be replaced by the more general term "party to the conflict" (as described in the 1949

Geneva Conventions upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conven ...

Article 3). After the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, the term "enemy combatant" was used by the

George W. Bush administration George W. Bush's tenure as the 43rd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2001, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican from Texas, took office following a narrow victory over Democratic ...

to include an alleged member of

al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...

or the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

being held in detention by the U.S. government. In this sense, "enemy combatant" actually refers to persons the United States regards as

unlawful combatant An unlawful combatant, illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a person who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war and therefore is claimed not to be protected by the Geneva Conventions. The Internati ...

s, a category of persons who do not qualify for

prisoner-of-war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...

status under the

. However, unlike unlawful combatants who qualify for some protections under the

Fourth Geneva Convention The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, more commonly referred to as the Fourth Geneva Convention and abbreviated as GCIV, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. It was adopted in Augus ...

, enemy combatants, under the Bush administration, were not covered by the Geneva Convention. Thus, the term "enemy combatant" has to be read in context to determine whether it means any combatant belonging to an enemy state or non-state actor, whether lawful or unlawful, or if it means an alleged member of al-Qaeda or of the Taliban being detained as an unlawful combatant by the United States. In the United States on March 13, 2009, the

Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...

announced its abandonment of the Bush administration's use of the term "enemy combatant".

Change of meaning in the United States

In the 1942

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

ruling Ex Parte Quirin, the Court uses the terms with their historical meanings to distinguish between

unlawful combatants An unlawful combatant, illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a person who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war and therefore is claimed not to be protected by the Geneva Conventions. The Internati ...

and

lawful combatants Combatant is the legal status of an individual who has the right to engage in hostilities during an armed conflict. The legal definition of "combatant" is found at article 43(2) of Additional Protocol I (AP1) to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It ...

: ''

Johnson v. Eisentrager ''Johnson v. Eisentrager'', 339 U.S. 763 (1950), was a major decision of the US Supreme Court, where it decided that US courts had no jurisdiction over German war criminals held in a US-administered prison in Germany. The prisoners had at no tim ...

'' (1950) reaffirmed the idea that the Constitution does not apply to enemy combatants, and that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction over them. In the wake of the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

the United States Congress passed a resolution known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF) on September 14, 2001, wherein the Congress invoked the

War Powers Resolution The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) () is a federal law intended to check the U.S. president's power to commit the United States to an ...

. Using this authorization granted to him by Congress, on November 13, 2001,

President George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

issued a Presidential Military Order: "''

Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism On November 13, 2001 U.S. President George W. Bush issued a Military Order titled Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism. According to Lietzau, America was detaining people not because they were criminals, but because they were the enemy. While the term was not drawn from the Quirin case, the administration looked to Quirin as validation of the term. Since then, the administration has formalized its usage of the term by using it specifically for detained alleged members and supporters of al-Qaida or the Taliban. For example: This lead has been followed by other parts of the Government and some section of the American news media. The result of this new usage means that the term "enemy combatant" has to be read in the context of the article in which it appears as to whether it means a member of the armed forces of an enemy state, or if it means an alleged member of ''al Qaida'' held prisoner by the United States.

Military Commissions Act

Following the Supreme Court's ruling of lexi

Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ''Hamdan v. Rumsfeld'', 548 U.S. 557 (2006), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay violated both the Uniform Code of Mili ...

the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

passed the

Military Commissions Act of 2006 The Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. The Act's stated purpose was "to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of ...

which contained definitions for lawful and unlawful enemy combatants. The Military Commissions Act mandated that Guantanamo captives were no longer entitled to access the US civil justice system, so all outstanding

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

petitions were stayed.

''Boumediene v. Bush''

On June 12, 2008, the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

ruled, in ''

Boumediene v. Bush ''Boumediene v. Bush'', 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of ''habeas corpus'' submission made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by ...

'', that the Military Commissions Act could not remove the right for

Guantanamo captives The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...

to access the US Federal Court system. And all previous Guantanamo captives' habeas petitions were eligible to be re-instated. The judges considering the captives' habeas petitions would be considering whether the evidence used to compile the allegations that the detainees were enemy combatants justified a classification of "enemy combatant".

Following the Supreme Court's ''Boumediene v. Bush'' ruling

On February 20, 2009, the administration of President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

sided with the Bush Administration's interpretation of law when they argued to bar access to civil courts sought by enemy combatants held at the

Bagram Airfield Bagram Airfield-BAF, also known as Bagram Air Base , is located southeast of Charikar in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan. It is under the Afghan Ministry of Defense. Sitting on the site of the ancient Bagram at an elevation of above sea leve ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. During a hearing on October 23, 2008,

US District Court Judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

Richard J. Leon Richard J. Leon (born December 3, 1949) is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Early life and education Leon was born in South Natick, Massachusetts, in 1949. He is the son of ...

commented on the ambiguity of the term "enemy combatant".

Farah Stockman Farah Nisa Stockman (born May 21, 1974) is an American journalist who has worked for ''The Boston Globe'' and is currently employed by ''The New York Times''. In 2016, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Early life Stockman was bor ...

, writing in ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', quoted Leon's remarks characterizing him as having ''"lashed out"'' at Congress and the Supreme Court for leaving the term undefined: On October 27, 2008, Leon ruled that the definition of "enemy combatant" he would use was that set forth in the 2004 rules for

Combatant Status Review Tribunal The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were esta ...

s. Defense attorneys for

Lakhdar Boumediene Lakhdar Boumediene ( ar, لخضر بومدين) is an Algerian-born citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina who was held in military custody in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba beginning in January 2002. Boumediene was the lead p ...

and his fellow

Bosnians Bosnians (Bosnian language: / ; / , / ) are people identified with the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina or with the region of Bosnia. As a common demonym, the term ''Bosnians'' refers to all inhabitants/citizens of the country, regardless ...

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

n descent were pleased with the definition because the DoD had long since dropped the allegation that they had plotted to attack the US Embassy in Sarajevo, and they felt that none of the remaining allegations met Leon's definition.

Obama Presidency abandons the term

On March 13, 2009,

United States Attorney General The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...

Eric Holder Eric Himpton Holder Jr. (born January 21, 1951) is an American lawyer who served as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States from 2009 to 2015. Holder, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama, was the first African America ...

issued a statement that the United States had abandoned the Bush administration term "enemy combatant". The statement said, "As we work toward developing a new policy to govern detainees, it is essential that we operate in a manner that strengthens our national security, is consistent with our values, and is governed by law." However, various human rights groups noted it as primarily a symbolic act. As of 2019 the United States continues to hold 40 detainees at the

Guantanamo Bay detention camp The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...

Change of meaning in the United States

Military Commissions Act

''Boumediene v. Bush''

Following the Supreme Court's ''Boumediene v. Bush'' ruling

Obama Presidency abandons the term

See also

References

Further reading