The courtrooms of America sometimes take us by surprise. Last week, Charles 'Chuckie' Taylor, the US-born son of the former Liberian president and notorious warlord, Charles Taylor, was sentenced in a Miami court to 97 years in prison for torture. It was the first time a US court had applied a law passed in 1994 allowing the prosecution of citizens who commit torture abroad. Is there now one law in the US for those who commit torture overseas and one for those who commit it at home with the authority of government? Perhaps not for much longer. In a TV interview last weekend, president-elect Barack Obama said that the attorney general would investigate whether some senior members of the Bush administration should be prosecuted for their part in torture. He did say, though, his belief was that 'what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future'. Also last week, he said he had given his new appointees to top intelligence posts a clear charge to restore America's stance on human rights: 'Under my administration the United States does not torture.' Mr Obama should also have reminded his audience it was under Ronald Reagan that the US helped push for the UN to agree to a legally binding treaty against torture, and then propelled Congress to rapidly ratify it. It is this treaty that provides the legal underpinning for the Taylor prosecution. Still, even the Bush administration has done its bit for some aspects of international law. For years, it waged war against the creation of the International Criminal Court, meant to try those charged with crimes against humanity. But Washington has changed its position in recent years. As several African warlords have been seized by the ICC, the US has supported the process. A test case for the US observing international law will be Mr Obama's willingness to close Guantanamo. The world never believed President George W. Bush when he said last year he wanted to close it. But now, with Mr Obama pushing, other western countries will have to step forward and agree to take many of the prisoners the US wants to release. But Mr Obama will still have the so-called 'hard core' prisoners on his hands, and public opinion does not appear to want them brought to the US mainland and prosecuted in domestic courts. The fear is that too many of them will be acquitted for lack of evidence or because they were tortured, and will then be free to arrange other atrocities. Maybe part of the answer to this is to bring a domestic court to Guantanamo to replace the military court. If convicted, they can be moved to incarceration in the US, but with their rights of appeal intact. If freed, they can be refused entry to the US and deported to the country of their choice. If no one will take them, they can be given a house and a plot of land in Guantanamo and wait until some country does. They can be compelled to wear tracking devices to stop them escaping. This would be important to upholding what Mr Obama calls America's 'highest ideals'. Jonathan Power is a London-based journalist