Chapter 3 Conditions of Detention | 41 70. For the same reasons which frequently require the Commission to refer to international humanitarian law in resolving individual cases, “the Commission also finds it necessary to utilize humanitarian law along with human rights law, in general reports […], for the purpose of analyzing a State's international responsibility relating to violence, where much of that violence occurs in the context of an armed conflict.” 43 1. 71. 72. 73. 43 44 45 46 47 The legal status of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay The United States Government holds the position that it has the authority to continuously detain prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility without charge or trial. 44 In this regard, it has indicated that “[t]he law of war allows the United States – and any other country engaged in combat – to hold enemy combatants without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities. Detention is not an act of punishment but of security and military necessity. It serves the purpose of preventing combatants from continuing to take up arms against the United States.” 45 In its response to this report, the United States claimed that “[t]he detainees who remain at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility continue to be detained lawfully, both as a matter of international law and under U.S. domestic law.” 46 In this regard, the State indicated that, as part of the “ongoing armed conflict with al-Qaida, the Taliban, and associated forces,” the United States has captured and detained enemy belligerents, and is permitted under the law of war to hold them until the end of hostilities. Two months after the United States began transferring individuals to Guantanamo Bay, the Inter-American Commission granted precautionary measures in favor of the detainees held in that facility and requested that the United States take the urgent measures necessary to have the legal status of the detainees determined by a competent tribunal. In its first Resolution on this issue, the Commission asserted that, “without this determination, the fundamental and non-derogable rights of the detainees may not be recognized and guaranteed by the United States.” 47 To understand the question of the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, it is important to have a brief overview of the evolution of the legal status of IACHR, Third Report on the Human Rights Situation in Colombia, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.102, February 26, 1999, Chapter III, para. 13. Written submission of the United States Government following the IACHR’s thematic hearing on the “Situation of Human Rights of the Persons Detained at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay” held on October 28, 2013, p. 2. Response of the United States of America dated October 21, 2005, to Inquiry of the UN Special rapporteurs dated August 8, 2005, Pertaining to Detainees at Guantanamo, p. 3, cited in U.N. Econ. & Soc. Council, Comm’n on Human Rights, Situation of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, E/CN.4/2006/120, February 27, 2006, para. 19. Available at: http://daccess-ddsny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G06/112/76/PDF/G0611276.pdf?OpenElement Submission of the Government of the United States to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights with respect to the Draft Report on the Closure of Guantanamo, OEA/Ser.L/V.II.Doc. 30 January 2015, March 30, 2015, p. 1. IACHR, Resolution No. 2/06, On Guantanamo Bay Precautionary Measures, July 28, 2006. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights | IACHR