"Many observers had hoped that the handful of transfers in the beginning of 2023 were a sign of, and momentum toward, significantly more to come. Over the summer and into the fall, it looked that way. Until it didn't..."
Policy analysts Yumna Rizvi and Scott Roehm at the Center for Victims of Torture suggest that reason is political, https://www.justsecurity.org/91153/another-lost-year-on-guantanamo/: "If so, and absent some other compelling justification -- the need to focus on the situation in the Middle East would not be a compelling one, given it is unrelated to Guantanamo transfers and there will always be a crisis to manage -- the administration's decision [to allow prisoners to languish at Guantanamo] is as misguided as it is disheartening."
Meanwhile, conditions of confinement continue to deteriorate.
The Biden administration tried to minimize the impact of a special 2023 UN report that "cumulative effects of certain structural deficiencies at Guantanamo amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under international law," disagreeing with those findings at a fifth periodic review of U.S. compliance.
"Guantanamo continues to cause profound damage both inside and outside of its walls," charge Rizvi and Roehm. "The steps to close Guantanamo are there for the taking, and 2024 could be its last chance to take them."
