In a recent visit to the newly constructed but empty detention facility in Parwan province, Afghanistan, three high profile NGOs voiced their concern over the lack of a legal framework for detainees in Afghanistan. Currently, prisoners are detained on the basis of a domestic US law, namely, the Authorization for Use of Military Force. According to Human Rights Watch, this is an unsatisfactory situation because “it fails to recognize that all persons held in Afghanistan are entitled to the legal protection of Afghan domestic law and international human rights law”.

The NGOs – Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First – advocate the protection of detainees as provided by the Afghan legal procedure. There is, however, acknowledgment that there have recently been positive developments, such as, the defendants’ right to call witnesses, question government witnesses and receive “notice of the basis of their internment”. However, Human Rights Watch notes that the current situation nevertheless falls short of international human rights law standards; failing as it does to entitle detainees to legal counsel and to challenge the legal and factual basis of their detention before an independent tribunal

The visit comes nearly a year after President Obama pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba, which has been fraught with difficulties. Meanwhile, six hundred detainees are still being kept in the Bagram detention facility in Afghanistan. The prisoners have no access to lawyers and their names are not publicly known. Some of the detainees are believed to have been kept there for up to five years. In Bagram, a prisoner’s fate is decided by a three-member military panel, with the choice of continued detention, release or transfer for criminal prosecution in Afghan courts.