The US Supreme Court’s ruling that the president has no authority to set up military tribunals to try the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay is being hailed as a victory by lawyers defending prisoners there.

It is a potentially meaningless victory. The ruling is not about the treatment of the 450 or so detainees at Guantanamo, 80 of them Saudis. It does nothing to bring their release any closer or ensure the camp’s closure. The ruling is simply about the powers of the president. President Bush can therefore quite easily obtain the appropriate authority. All he has to do is ask Congress to change the law.

Indeed, he does not even have to ask; Republican Congressmen have already rushed forward to their president’s aid to make military tribunals legal. Hardly was the ink dry on the Supreme Court ruling before an “Unprivileged Combatant Act” was introduced in the Senate. The expectation has to be that military tribunals, where sensitive evidence can be kept away from public ears, will become legal and will be used to try many of the remaining detainees, not just the ten already scheduled for trial.

Far more important is the Supreme Court’s decision, as part of its ruling, that the Geneva Conventions apply to the detainees. The White House has consistently refused to accept this, using that denial to create a legal loophole to deny the detainees any rights. This is a real victory both for them and for US justice. It opens the door to what could be a tidal wave of challenges to Guantanamo Bay — on the treatment of prisoners under the Geneva Conventions and allegations of torture — none of which the White House will be able to prevent. It could even end up with the camp being forced to close — although if it does, it will be because it has become an embarrassment for Washington, not because it would be considered illegal in any future Supreme Court ruling. If anything, Thursday’s ruling implies that Guantanamo is legal under US law; it effectively said that the detainees can be held, as prisoners of war, for as long as the war on terror continues but that they have rights. Clearly if they are to be held, they have to be held somewhere.

It is this classification as prisoners of war that is the problem. The idea of prisoners of war being detained for the period of hostilities is fine in a conventional war between states but the war on terror is not a conventional war and there is no end in sight. It could go on for decades. The possibility of prisoners being detained for so long, even with the protection of the Geneva Conventions, goes against all concepts of natural justice. That is what sticks in the gullets of most people on Guantanamo. The only way out of this impasse is to stop talking about prisoners of war and either charge the detainees — and fighting or working for a terrorist organization should be a sufficient charge — or release them.

The status quo, even with the benefit of the Geneva Conventions, has become repugnant.