A group of former US federal judges, diplomats, military officials and human rights advocates has urged the US Supreme Court to review the case of terrorist suspects held without charge at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.
The group filed seven friend-of-the-court briefs questioning the legality of the US treatment of prisoners at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere under the US Constitution, the Geneva Conventions and international law.
"The idea that American executive branch personnel, particularly military personnel, can detain people beyond the reach of habeas corpus is just repugnant to the rule of law," said Mr John Gibbons, former chief judge of the federal appeals court in Philadelphia.
Mr Gibbons said he hoped the US Supreme Court would "restore the rule of law" by authorising a judicial review of these cases.
The military is holding about 660 terrorism suspects from 42 countries at the US base in Cuba. No charges have been brought against them but the United States has identified a handful it considers eligible for military tribunals.
The briefs were filed in connection with two cases from Guantanamo Bay being appealed to the Supreme Court and one for an American-born Taliban prisoner detained in a US Navy prison in Charleston, South Carolina.
The United States considers the prisoners enemy combatants and not prisoners of war, who are granted a wide range of protections under international law.
The first detainees, seized during the US campaign against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and its Taliban protectors in Afghanistan, arrived in January 2002 at Guantanamo.