GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — Opening new and uncertain chapters in both the war on terrorism and the history of American criminal justice, four men go on trial this week before a special commission of military judges and prosecutors on charges growing out of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The men -- one from Australia, one from Sudan and two from Yemen who were swept up on battlefields in Afghanistan -- face prosecution before a military commission, a bitterly contested judicial mechanism that lay dormant for half a century until it was resurrected by President Bush to deal with terrorism.
The trials, which begin today at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, have drawn comparisons to the Nuremberg war crimes trials that followed World War II, in which Allied prosecutors verbally jousted with sometimes unrepentant Nazi officers -- some of whom eventually were executed.
But although the international trials after World War II may have helped quench a thirst for justice, the proceedings at Guantanamo reflect deep differences between then and now.
A chief distinction is that, unlike the Nuremberg military trials, the United States is conducting the Guantanamo proceedings alone, not in cooperation with its allies in the war on terrorism.
Another difference is that the Nuremberg trials sought to redress wrongs that occurred during a conflict that had ended. Not so with the Guantanamo trials.
"They're unique because they're not taking place at a time when, from a conventional point of view, there is no war going on," said Detlev Vagts, an authority on international law and treaties at Harvard Law School. "The war on terrorism could go on forever, and orthodox wars come to ends."
Also, though the Nuremberg trials featured prominent members of Adolf Hitler's leadership -- air force chief Hermann Goering, Hitler deputy Rudolf Hess and others -- none of the four facing preliminary hearings in Cuba this week was a top figure in Al Qaeda or the deposed Taliban regime.
"The people being tried are quite small fry, or so it seems," said Eugene R. Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, a nonprofit organization of attorneys who represent military defendants. "You don't have a general officer here, or the equivalent."
Those who have been charged at Guantanamo so far have included a driver and bodyguards for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, a bookkeeper and others who are charged with conspiring against the U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
