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In October 2001, six men were arrested in Bosnia and Herzegovina for their alleged involvement in the bombing of the US Embassy in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina). Later, they were handed over to the US and transferred to the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay (Cuba).

In 2004, the men filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus (a legal action in which the petitioners challenge the legality of their detention). In 2005, the US District Court ruled that Guantanamo detainees do not have habeas corpus rights. The detainees appealed the decision. In the aftermath of the adoption of the Military Commissions Act in 2006, the US government requested the dismissal of the case, arguing that the federal court no longer had jurisdiction to hear the case.

The Court of Appeals found that the Military Commissions Act indeed removed the jurisdiction of federal courts to hear habeas corpus petitions from Guantanamo detainees. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals dismissed the detainee’s petitions on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction.

In June 2008, the Supreme Court reversed this decision, finding that Guantanamo detainees have a right to file habeas corpus petitions. The legal provisions which suspended this right were found to be unconstitutional. Also, all previous Guantanamo detainees'  corpus petitions were found to be eligible for reinstatement. The Supreme Court reached its decision on the grounds that the United States has unilateral control over Guantanamo Bay and, therefore, the prison is within the statutory jurisdiction of the US federal courts.

Wadih El-Hage, 40, is a naturalised American citizen who was born in Lebanon. He was Osama bin Laden's personal secretary. He was accused of being the key organiser of the Kenya cell and of setting up front companies in Kenya for Al Qaeda. He left Kenya almost a year before the bombings, after being questioned by the FBI in Africa. At the time of the bombings, he was living in Arlington, Texas, with his wife, April, and seven children. El Hage claimed he only worked for bin Laden in legitimate businesses and had no contact with him since 1994. El Hage was charged with conspiracy to murder Americans.

On 29 May 2001, El Hage was convicted for conspiracy to kill United States officers and employees engaging in official duties and conspiracy to destroy buildings and property of the United States. In addition, he was found guilty of giving false statements to a federal jury (perjury). On the basis of this conviction, El Hage was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of being released.

On 24 November 2008, the Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction of El Hage and returned the judgment for reconsideration of the sentence because the District Court made procedural errors. El Hage was sentenced again to life imprisonment.

In August 1998, the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden. In retaliation, President Clinton ordered a missile strike on the El-Shaifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, arguing that it was a base for terrorism. Later, it was proven that the plan had no ties to terrorists. Therefore, El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries brought complaints against the United States in the US Court of Federal Claims.

In November 2005, the District Court found that El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries raised a non-justiciable political question (which foresees that courts have no authority to hear or adjudge on matters that raise political, rather than legal, questions) in asking the Court to adjudge on the President’s powers to designate as enemy property the private property of the chemical plant in Sudan.

On 27 March 2009, the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the District Court, holding that the case raised a political question, and therefore barring the court from hearing the matter.

El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries filed a petition to the Court of Appeals asking for the case to be re-heard by the court sitting en banc (where the case is heard before all judges of the court). On 3 August 2009, the Court of Appeals granted their petition, ordering that the case be re-heard by the court sitting en banc and vacating the earlier judgment of 27 March 2009.

The Al-Aulaqi case is significant as it marks in all probability the first time that an American citizen has been killed by U.S. forces outside the borders of the U.S., without any trial, indictment or due process. The case revolves around Anwar Al-Aulaqi, an American-born cleric with dual U.S.-Yemeni citizenship who was a member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and had gone into hiding in Yemen, from where he regularly published videos propagating the jihad. The U.S. Treasury Department had allegedly designated him for targeted killing. Therefore, his father, Nasser Al-Aulaqi, filed a complaint claiming that the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of the CIA unlawfully authorised the targeted killing, and seeking an injunction prohibiting them from intentionally killing his son, except in case he did present a concrete, specific, and imminent threat to life or physical safety, and when there are no means other than lethal force that could reasonably be employed to neutralise the threat. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights intervened with a memorandum supporting Al-Aulaqi senior’s complaint.

The Columbia District Court found that plaintiff Al-Aulaqi, the father, had neither legal standing in court for his claims, nor that was the claim justiciable under the Alien Tort Statute. And if this was not enough, the Court also ruled that the political question doctrine barred it from adjudicating the case. On 7 December 2010, Nasser Al-Aulaqi’s complaint was dismissed on those grounds, while the defendants’ motion to dismiss was granted.

Anwar Al-Aulaqi was killed by a drone strike in Yemen on 30 September 2011.

In August 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden. In retaliation, President Clinton ordered a missile strike on the El-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, arguing that it was a base for terrorism. Later, it was proven that the plant had no ties to terrorists. Therefore, El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries brought complaints against the United States in the US Court of Federal Claims.

In November 2005, the District Court found that El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries raised a non-justiciable political question (which foresees that courts have no authority to hear or adjudge on matters that raise political, rather than legal, questions) in asking the Court to adjudge on the President’s powers to designate as enemy property the private property of the chemical plant in Sudan.

In March 2009, the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the District Court, holding that the case raised a political question, and therefore barring the court from hearing the matter. El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries attempted to exclude from its appeal the political question doctrine, however, the Court of Appeals found that the other raised claims were ‘inextricably intertwined’ with the political  question doctrine and therefore, must be considered together. The Court of Appeal affirmed the District Court’s earlier finding that the raised issues are political questions and hence, non-justiciable.