Articles

• Vagts, Detlev F.

Abstract

The article considers the advantages and disadvantages of trying terrorists before regular US civilian courts, before military tribunals, before courts outside the United States or before an international tribunal While civilian courts have problems with maintaining security and handling classified information, they possess a high degree of legitimacy. Military tribunals can be efficient in some ways, but their constitutional basis is questionable, depending largely on whether there is a ‘war’ going on. Foreign courts will occasionally have jurisdiction over persons captured in their territory, but some of them follow procedures that discredit them in the eyes of advanced states. The chances of an international criminal tribunal suitable for terrorist cases coming into existence in the near future do not seem good. The article concludes that, in most cases, the regular US courts will be preferable.