ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes preventive detention in the United States. Beyond American shores, another device the law of armed conflict (LOAC) provides the framework to detain indefinitely persons categorized as some sort of combatant. The LOAC focuses on the detention of a discrete group of persons in detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. However, Congress has persisted in blocking the transfer of Guantanamo detainees into the United States, either for prosecution or long-term detention. In the context of pre-trial detention, a form of administrative detention exists as a measure to prevent terrorism by keeping suspects who are remanded in custody, prior to trial, in solitary confinement and incommunicado. Preventive detention pursuant to the immigration detention system affects more people than any other preventive detention regime in the United States. International human rights jurisprudence sets the boundaries for preventive detention provisions found in domestic laws in times of actual and imminent terror attacks.
