1. Michael Ratner was co-counsel in representing the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States Supreme Court, which ruled for the detainees' right to test the legality of their detentions in US courts, saying that the Guantanamo base was effectively an extension of US territory and covered by US law.
Michael Ratner was the co-host of the radio program, Law and Disorder.
Michael Ratner received his Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School, where he graduated first in his class.
Michael Ratner taught law in the early 1970s at Columbia Law School and at Yale Law School.
Michael Ratner opposed Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse and the Iraq War.
In May 2014, Michael Ratner submitted his resignation from the advisory board of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis, due to the university's president cutting ties with Al Quds, a Palestinian University, after a student demonstration there.
Michael Ratner declared his support for Al Quds' President, Dr Nusseibeh, and his promotion of "mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and the exchange of ideas" with Israelis.
Shortly after the US government began to detain prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba in 2002 during the so-called War on Terror, claiming they were beyond the reach of United States law as being "offshore" and military prisoners, Michael Ratner was co-counsel with other attorneys and the CCR in a landmark case challenging the Bush position in court.
Michael Ratner served as a special counsel to Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, assisting in the prosecution of human rights crimes.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which Michael Ratner led, states that its mission is to defend civil liberties in the US.
Tragically, writes Moyn, Michael Ratner's career is a case history of how US humanitarians ended up sanitizing the war on terror instead of opposing it.
Michael Ratner was born into a large Jewish family of immigrants which had fled antisemitism in Poland.
Michael Ratner was the President of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin.