David H. Remes

David H. Remes (born 1954) is an American lawyer.

Remes was a partner at the law firm Covington & Burling.

Remes has been recognized for his human rights work.

Remes is notable for volunteering to serve as a pro bono attorney for some of the captives held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.

Remes played a role in a challenge focussed around the captives' detention based on an avenue of appeal that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA) opened. The DTA closed the opportunity for captives who had not yet had writs of habeas corpus filed on their behalf. But the DTA allowed captives to challenge the determinations of their Combatant Status Review Tribunals, that they were properly classified as "enemy combatants". The DTA allowed captives to challenge the enemy combatant determination if the Tribunal failed to follow the rules laid out in their mandate.

One aspect of that challenge was a request that the court force the DoD to release more information on the evidence used to justify the captive's detention. Leading officials in the United States counter-terrorism establishment appealed a July 20, 2007 appeals court ruling forcing the release of information about the captives on national security grounds. Remes responded:

This is just a smoke screen to hide the fact that they can’t justify the detentions,

Remes is one of the attorneys for Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani businessman who lived in the USA for several years, who is suffering from serious heart disease. Paracha has been appealing to get permission to travel temporarily to an American hospital for heart surgery. Camp authorities claim his heart surgery could be performed in Guantanamo's infirmary. They complained that $400,000 had been spent preparing the infirmary for his surgery. Paracha's lawyers have argued that previous procedures at Guantanamo have been botched.

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