Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore
I really did think this was obvious, but...

The UN universal declaration of human rights is just that - universal. It applies to every state and person. And this is the US view:

It was made by all the members of the UN, and applies to every member. Also, the US worked hard on it, so it is pretty obvious that it should be applied.
Hello HoreTore,

Your post is confused on several points. The U.N. does not have extra-territorial authority. This means what is ratified within the U.N. does not have the force of law. For example, if the U.N. ratified a resolution dissolving Norway as a country, Norway does not thereby cease to exist as a nation. Any legal overlay one may want to apply to the U.N. exists as a treaty. Under U.S. law treaties require ratification. There are two points here: one, I don't believe the U.S. has ever ratified the U.N.'s specific declaration of human rights. Two, the ratifying authority always trumps what it ratifies. What this second point means is whatever has force to bind a thing, can also loose that thing. This is why a nation may ratify a treaty and then later reject, or modify the same. This is important for your case as the U.S. Congress passed the Military Commissons Act (MCA) in 2006 (I've previously referred to this in the thread). If you wish to make a human rights legal argument contra the U.S. you need to look into the confines of U.S. law, not the U.N.

Note: several of your citations from the Declaration on Human Rights speak to criminality. That is a civil designation and does not apply to combatants in Guantanamo regardless.