Opinion of the Court.

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Book III, c. XVI, § 241. And so too, Lawrence, who says, "If . . . the breach of the conditions agreed upon is the act of unauthorized individuals, the side that suffers may demand the punishment of the guilty parties and an indemnity for any losses it has sustained." Principles of International Law (5th ed.) p. 566. It being within the jurisdiction of a Military Commission to try the prisoners, it was for it to determine whether the laws of war applied and whether an offense against them had been committed.

We can only read "(b)" to mean either that the presence of the military forces of the United States in China at the times in question was unconstitutional or, if lawfully there, that they had no right under the Constitution to set up a Military Commission on Chinese territory. But it can hardly be meant that it was unconstitutional for the Government of the United States to wage a war in foreign parts. Among powers granted to Congress by the Constitution is power to provide for the common defense, to declare war, to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, and to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces. Art. I, § 8, Const. It also gives power to make rules concerning captures on land and water, ibid., which this Court has construed as an independent substantive power. Brown v. United States, 8 Cranch 110, 126. Indeed, out of seventeen specific paragraphs of congressional power, eight of them are devoted in whole or in part to specification of powers connected with warfare. The first of the enumerated powers of the President is that he shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. Art. II, § 2, Const. And, of course, grant of war power includes all that is necessary and proper for carrying these powers into execution.

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Opinion of the Court.

Certainly it is not the function of the Judiciary to entertain private litigation-even by a citizen-which challenges the legality, the wisdom, or the propriety of the Commander-in-Chief in sending our armed forces abroad or to any particular region. China appears to have fully consented to the trial within her territories and, if China had complaint at the presence of American forces there, China's grievance does not become these prisoners' right. The issue tendered by "(b)" involves a challenge to conduct of diplomatic and foreign affairs, for which the President is exclusively responsible. United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., 299 U. S. 304; Chicago & Southern Air Lines v. Waterman Steamship Corp., 333 U. S. 103.

These prisoners do not assert, and could not, that anything in the Geneva Convention makes them immune from prosecution or punishment for war crimes.1 Article 75 thereof expressly provides that a prisoner of war may be detained until the end of such proceedings and, if necessary, until the expiration of the punishment. 47 Stat. 2021, 2055.

The petition, however, makes two claims in the nature of procedural irregularities said to deprive the Military Commission of jurisdiction. One is that the United States was obliged to give the protecting power of Ger

14 We are not holding that these prisoners have no right which the military authorities are bound to respect. The United States, by the Geneva Convention of July 27, 1929, 47 Stat. 2021, concluded with forty-six other countries, including the German Reich, an agreement upon the treatment to be accorded captives. These prisoners claim to be and are entitled to its protection. It is, however, the obvious scheme of the Agreement that responsibility for observance and enforcement of these rights is upon political and military authorities. Rights of alien enemies are vindicated under it only through protests and intervention of protecting powers as the rights of our citizens against foreign governments are vindicated only by Presidential intervention.

Opinion of the Court.

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many notice of the trial, as specified in Article 60 of the Convention. This claim the Court has twice considered and twice rejected, holding that such notice is required only of proceedings for disciplinary offenses committed during captivity and not in case of war crimes committed before capture. Ex parte Quirin, supra; Ex parte Yamashita, supra.

The other claim is that they were denied trial "by the same courts and according to the same procedure as in the case of persons belonging to the armed forces of the detaining Power," required by Article 63 of the Convention. It may be noted that no prejudicial disparity is pointed out as between the Commission that tried prisoners and those that would try an offending soldier of the American forces of like rank. By a parity of reasoning with that in the foregoing decisions, this Article also refers to those, and only to those, proceedings for disciplinary offenses during captivity. Neither applies to a trial for war crimes.

We are unable to find that the petition alleges any fact showing lack of jurisdiction in the military authorities to accuse, try and condemn these prisoners or that they acted in excess of their lawful powers.

V.

The District Court dismissed this petition on authority of Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U. S. 188. The Court of Appeals considered only questions which it regarded as reserved in that decision and in Ex parte Endo, 323 U. S. 283. Those cases dealt with persons both residing and detained within the United States and whose capacity and standing to invoke the process of federal courts somewhere was unquestioned. The issue was where.

Since in the present application we find no basis for invoking federal judicial power in any district, we need

not debate as to where, if the case were otherwise, the petition should be filed.

For reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the judgment of the District Court dismissing the petition is affirmed.

Reversed.

MR. JUSTICE BLACK, with whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and MR. JUSTICE BURTON concur, dissenting.

Not only is United States citizenship a "high privilege," it is a priceless treasure. For that citizenship is enriched beyond price by our goal of equal justice under lawequal justice not for citizens alone, but for all persons coming within the ambit of our power. This ideal gave birth to the constitutional provision for an independent judiciary with authority to check abuses of executive power and to issue writs of habeas corpus liberating persons illegally imprisoned.'

This case tests the power of courts to exercise habeas corpus jurisdiction on behalf of aliens, imprisoned in Germany, under sentences imposed by the executive through military tribunals. The trial court held that, because the persons involved are imprisoned overseas, it had no territorial jurisdiction even to consider their petitions. The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court's dismissal on the ground that the judicial rather than the executive branch of government is vested with final authority to determine the legality of imprisonment for crime. 84 U. S. App. D. C. 396, 174 F. 2d 961. This Court now affirms the District Court's dismissal. I agree with the Court of Appeals and need add little to the

1 Article I, § 9, cl. 2 of the Constitution provides: "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

BLACK, J., dissenting.

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cogent reasons given for its decision. The broad reach of today's opinion, however, requires discussion.

First. In Part IV of its opinion the Court apparently bases its holding that the District Court was without jurisdiction on its own conclusion that the petition for habeas corpus failed to show facts authorizing the relief prayed for. But jurisdiction of a federal district court does not depend on whether the initial pleading sufficiently states a cause of action; if a court has jurisdiction of subject matter and parties, it should proceed to try the case, beginning with consideration of the pleadings. Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 682-683; Ex parte Kawato, 317 U. S. 69, 71.2 Therefore Part IV of the opinion is wholly irrelevant and lends no support whatever to the Court's holding that the District Court was without jurisdiction.

Moreover, the question of whether the petition showed on its face that these prisoners had violated the laws of war, even if it were relevant, is not properly before this Court. The trial court did not reach that question because it concluded that their imprisonment outside its district barred it even from considering the petition; its doors were "summarily closed." And in reversing, the Court of Appeals specifically rejected requests that it consider the sufficiency of the petition, properly remanding the cause to the District Court for that determination-just as this Court did in the Hood and Kawato cases, supra. The Government's petition for certiorari here presented no question except that of jurisdiction; and neither party has argued, orally or in briefs, that this Court should pass on the sufficiency of the petition.

2 Cases are occasionally dismissed where the claims are "wholly insubstantial and frivolous," Bell v. Hood, supra, but the very complexity of this Court's opinion belies any such classification of this petition.