Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942), is a Supreme Court of the United States case that upheld the jurisdiction of a United States military tribunal over the trial of several Operation Pastorius German saboteurs in the United States. Quirin has been cited as a precedent for the execution of any unlawful combatant against the United States.
In the days after the Military Order on November 13, 2001 to try suspected terrorists, and particularly those detained at Guantanamo Bay, in Military Commissions, Ex Parte Quirin was frequently cited as the legal basis for the Order. Upon the capture of the Quirin saboteurs, President Roosevelt issued an Executive Order, upon which the Bush Order was putatively modeled, which authorized military commissions to try the captives for, among other things, violations of the law of war, for providing the enemy with intelligence and spying.
Since the 1942 Quirin case, the US signed and ratified the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which are, therefore, considered to be a part of U.S. municipal law.
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