The Rule of Law Oral History Project

The Rule of Law Oral History Project was initiated in 2008 to explore and document the state of human and civil rights in the post-9/11 world. In its first year, the project conducted a series of interviews with attorneys in order to document legal challenges against capital punishment in the United States. Recognizing important intersections between litigation challenging the administration of capital punishment and the legal architecture of post-9/11 detention policies and practices, the Rule of Law Oral History Project expanded in 2010 to study the statutory and constitutional challenges of the use of the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay.

Selected Interviews

(Please consult OHAC’s Oral History Citations & Permissions for citation guidance)

Featured

Dan Aalbers

Psychologist and Activist, Coalition for an Ethical Psychology

Feroz Ali Abassi

Cageprisoners Caseworker and former Guantánamo detainee

Anthony G. Amsterdam

University Professor, New York University School of Law

Moazzam Begg

Cageprisoners Caseworker and former Guantánamo detainee

Ghislaine Boulanger

Psychologist; Co-founder of Psychologists for an Ethical APA

Yvonne R. Bradley

Defense Counsel, Judge Advocate General, U.S. Air Force

Stephen B. Bright

President and Senior Counsel, Southern Center for Human Rights

Cerie Bullivant

Cageprisoners Caseworker Intern and former control order detainee

Richard H. Burr

Burr and Welch P.C.; Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel

V. Stuart Couch

Prosecutor, Guantánamo Bay Military Commissions

Morris D. Davis

Chief Prosecutor, Guantánamo Bay Military Commissions

Joshua L. Dratel

Attorney for Guantánamo detainee David Hicks

Mark Fallon

Deputy Commander, Criminal Investigation Task Force

Karen J. Greenberg

Director, Center on National Security, Fordham Law School

Daniel Heyman

Artist, Abu Ghraib Detainee Interview Project and Portraits of Iraqis Project

Joseph P. Hoar

Former Commander-in-Chief, United States Central Command [CENTCOM]

Elizabeth Holtzman

U.S. Congresswoman, D-New York, 1973-1981

Scott Horton

Journalist, "No Comment" blog, Harper's Magazine

Jameel Jaffer

Director, Knight First Amendment Institute; Former Deputy Legal Director, American Civil Liberties Union

Shane Kadidal

Senior Managing Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights

Ramzi Kassem

Associate Professor, CUNY School of Law

Zachary P. Katznelson

Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project

Pardiss Kebriaei

Senior Staff Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights

Robert C. Kirsch

Co-lead Counsel, Boumediene v. Bush; Partner, WilmerHale

Brittain Mallow

Commander, Criminal Investigation Task Force

Jane Mayer

Author, The Dark Side; staff writer, The New Yorker

Gareth Peirce

Attorney for Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, and Rhuhel Ahmed

Asim Qureshi

Cageprisoners Executive Director and Research Director

Michael Ratner

President Emeritus, Center for Constitutional Rights

A. Raymond Randolph

Senior Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit

Featured

Steven Reisner

Psychologist and Activist, Coalition for an Ethical Psychology

James Robertson

Senior Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Retired

Clive Stafford Smith

Director, Reprieve; Attorney for several GTMO detainees

John Paul Stevens

Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court (1975-2010)

Stephen Soldz

Charles D. Swift

Military Defense Attorney for Salim Hamdan, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld; Director, Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America

Ricardo M. Urbina

Senior Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Retired

Jeremy Varon

Activist, Witness Against Torture; co-editor, The Sixties journal

Lawrence V. Wilkerson

Former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell

P. Sabin Willett

Attorney for Uighur detainees at GTMO