With just four weeks till Obama's inauguration, the Bush administration's military commissions are supposed to be history. So why does the government act like they'll continue past January 20?

President-elect Barack Obama should implement “an unqualified return to America’s established system of justice for detaining and prosecuting suspects” when he fulfills his pledge to shut down the Guantánamo Bay prison camp and military commissions, four leading rights organizations said in a letter released today.

Closing Guantánamo will not be easy. As David Cole points out, some of the detainees held there cannot be sent back to their home countries, and others are too dangerous to release. But while he insists that outsourcing the problem is not an option, he seems all too willing to bring the problem home.

Other EU governments should accept Portugal’s call to resettle Guantanamo detainees who cannot be returned to their home countries. Portugal is the first country to press publicly and formally for a coordinated EU resettlement plan.

When alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants entered the Guantánamo Bay courtroom Monday, they came armed with a plan to martyr themselves at the hands of a tainted legal system. By the afternoon, the plan was in disarray.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others announced that they plan to plead guilty to conspiring in the September 11 attacks and related crimes at a hearing before US military commissions at Guantanamo today. All five defendants face the death penalty.

The health of a former Guantanamo detainee has declined alarmingly in a Russian detention facility, and he should be given immediate access to an independent medical examination and appropriate treatment, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Bush administration should immediately arrange for the return to Bosnia of five detainees ordered freed by a US federal court.