What is Guantanamo Bay Naval Base?

Answer

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base at the southeastern end of Cuba (19°54′N 75°9′W) has been used by the United States Navy for more than a century. The United States controls the land on both sides of the southern part of Guantánamo Bay (Bahía de Guantánamo in Spanish) under a lease set up in the wake of the 1898 Spanish-American War. The Cuban government denounces the lease on grounds that article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties voids treaties procured by force or its threatened use. (However, article 4 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties explicitly states that it is not retroactive, applying "only to treaties which are concluded by States after the entry into force of the present Convention."[1] Thus the Vienna Convention cannot apply to the 1898 lease agreement.)

Since 2001, the naval base has contained a detainment camp for persons alleged to be militant combatants captured in Afghanistan and later in Iraq that the U.S. maintains are not protected under the Geneva Convention.

First answer by RoyR. Last edit by RoyR. Contributor trust: 4581 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 34 [recommend question]