The US military has cleared the way to resume war crimes trials of terrorism suspects detained at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with support from a latest federal appeals court ruling.

A judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circut on Thursday overturned a lower-court decision that has suspended the government's plan to use so-called "military commissions" to carry out war crimes trials at Guantanamo for eight months, according to Friday's Washington Post.

The appeals judges said the war crimes trials, the first of their kind conducted by the US military since the aftermath of World War II, do not violate any international conventions or US laws.

The "military commissions", whose establishment is directly under the authorization of US President George W. Bush, denies Guantanamo detainees access not only to civilian courts but also to the proceedings of court-martials in which they can enjoy additional rights and legal protections.

In November last year, James Robertson, a federal district judge in Washington, ruled that the "military commissions" violated the Geneva Conventions, to which the United States is a signatory itself, as well as the US Constitution and military laws.

He argued that detainees at Guantanamo should be tried under the same conditions as American soldiers who are court-martialed.

Following Robertson's ruling, the proceedings of the "military commissions" have been suspended since then.

However, in Friday's appeals court ruling, Robertson's decision was totally rejected.

Appeals court judges claimed that the Geneva Conventions "do not create judicially enforceable rights", which means accusations of a violations may not be brought in a lawsuit.

The Guantanamo base currently detains 520 prisoners and most of them were captured during the US war in Afghanistan after the Sept.11, 2001 terrorist attack.

The detainees are classified as "enemy combatants" by the United States and are denied rights accorded to war prisoners under the Geneva Conventions.

Source: Xinhua