During his tenure there, he cowrote several legal opinions with John Yoo relating to interrogation, detention, and rendition of terror suspects.
[5] Delahunty and Yoo's January 9, 2002 draft Memorandum to William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense, "Application of Treaties and Laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees" claims that al Qaeda and Taliban members are "not governed by the bulk of the Geneva Conventions, specifically those provisions concerning POWs.
Common Article 3 [...] is applicable here and [...] requires that Hamdan be tried by a 'regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.'"
On July 7, 2006, Gordon R. England of the Defense Department ordered that Common article three of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits inhumane treatment of prisoners and requires certain basic legal rights at trial – would apply to all detainees held in U.S. military custody.
[9][10] Some prominent lawyers and ethicists have argued that the authors of this memo bear responsibility for the results of the U.S. Government's application of its legal conclusion in the field.