[JURIST] The International Labour Organization (ILO) [official website] Thursday called for a ban on child labor in mines and quarries [press release] as the focus for the World Day Against Child Labour [press release] on June 12. The agency has urged labor unions, employers and governments to provide financial aid to small, family run mines in order to relieve their dependence on cheap child labor. The ILO estimates that nearly one million children ranging from ages 5-17 working in mines and quarries worldwide are exposed to risks of chronic diseases and potential fatalities. Brazil, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Ghana, Pakistan, and nine other countries have already signed an agreement to work toward eliminating child labor within the next 5-10 years. The child mining labor initiative is being launched at the next session of the group's International Labour Conference [agenda, PDF] that begins in Geneva on Friday. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Executive Director of Saudi Arabia's recently-formed [press release] National Human Rights Association (NHRA) said Thursday that the commission has received over 2000 valid complaints, roughly a third of which concerned prison abuse in the country. Dr. Lubna al-Ansari said most "have been processed and resolved, either through letters to officials or some sort of action." An Amnesty International report released last month said torture and brutality are common in Saudi prisons. Also last month, three Westerners said that they had confessed to planning a stream of bomb attacks only because of the severe torture they received [JURIST report] while being held for two years in a Saudi prison. Since 9/11, US authorities are said to have flown some 100 terror suspects to facilities in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other countries whose prison practices are problematic; human rights groups have condemned such "renditions" for exposing prisoners to torture and abuse abroad. Aljazeera has local coverage.

[JURIST] Federal prosecutors Thursday explained their controversial decision earlier this week to reduce a proposed racketeering penalty [JURIST report] against major tobacco companies from $130 billion to $10 billion, saying that they were focusing on future smokers who might become addicted if the tobacco companies' alleged behavior continues, rather than on those suffered from it by becoming hooked in the past. Democratic members of Congress were "outraged" by the downsized amount and requested that the Justice Department's inspector general investigate whether political appointees had any influence on the decision. US Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum [DOJ biography] said Justice Department employees and political appointees had worked together "to devise the most appropriate strategy" while lawyer for Philip Morris [corporate website] Dan Webb [attorney profile] denied that the decision was made to benefit tobacco companies. The Justice Department has documents and background materials on the tobacco ligitation. AP has more.

[JURIST] Former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor [official profile] was approved for a permanent seat on the US Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday by a 53-45 floor vote [roll call] in the US Senate. Pryor, who was temporarily seated on the Court of Appeals by a 2004 recess appointment [JURIST report], was another of a series of Bush judicial nominees advanced during his first term but not brought to a vote due to Democratic filibustering of what they regarded as extreme or unacceptable candidates. Cloture was invoked on Pryor's nomination Wednesday by a 67-32 vote. Pryor's approval follows the confirmation [JURIST report] in May of former Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen [court profile], and that of California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown [court profile], who was approved yesterday [JURIST report]. Bloomberg has more.

[JURIST] Former Bank of America broker Theodore C. Sihpol was found not guilty Thursday of aiding a New Jersey hedge fund in illegally trading mutual funds [JURIST report] after the close of the stock market. Sihpol was acquitted of 29 counts of larceny, securities fraud, and falsifying business records but State Supreme Court Justice James Yates declared a mistrial on four deadlocked counts, including a scheme to defraud and violations of the state's general business law. Sihpol was the first defendant to go to trial after New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer [official website] began his investigation of the mutual fund industry [press release] and analysts believe it may prompt other accused executives to face trial instead of seeking settlement, as most have up until now. Bloomberg has more.

[JURIST] Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning [official website] filed an appeal Thursday contesting a federal judge's May 12 ruling against the Nebraska same-sex marriage ban. The appeal was expected as Bruning had previously announced in a press release [text] that he would oppose the decision [JURIST report]. Nebraska's overthrown Defense of Marriage Amendment was enacted by 70 percent of voters in 2000 and defines marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman. Bruning announced that through the appeal he hopes to uphold "Nebraskans' right to amend their Constitution as they see fit." AP has more.

[JURIST] Leading Thursday's international brief, 54 residents from a state-created squatter settlement on the northern border of Zimbabwean captal city Harare have taken their attempt to prevent the government from demolishing their homes to the nation's Supreme Court. Residents of the Hatcliffe Extension, which houses several hundred families and was created by the Zimbabwean government [official website] in the 1990s, have taken their case to block the demolition of their homes to the Supreme Court following a High Court ruling last week that found that the Harare city officials and police were acting within their power as they followed an order from Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe [Wikipedia profile] to evict and demolish squatters in the nation's largest cities, a move Mugabe claims is necessary to "restore the beauty" of Zimbabwe. Several rights and aids groups have been presenting legal challenges [JURIST report] to the policy, but this is the first case to be sent to the Supreme Court and rights activists fear that the case may be used to drastically set back the rights of homeless and indigent people. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Zimbabwe. ZimOnline has local coverage.

In other international legal news ...

• The defence ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [official website] have authorized NATO's involvement in the logistics of the UN-approved peacekeeping force [JURIST report] for Sudan by airlifting troops from contributing nations to their deployment areas, representing NATO's first presence on the African continent. African Union [official website] officials had approached NATO [JURIST report] about the possibility of logistical support for the deployment of its troops in Sudan from the primarily Europe-based communal defense organization. NATO's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer [official profile] made the announcement at the defence minister's meeting currently being held in Brussels. Government officials from Sudan have welcomed the announcement, but reiterated that Sudan would not allow any NATO troops to serve in the peacekeeping force. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Sudan [JURIST news archive]. Read the official NATO press release. The Sudan Tribune has local coverage.
  
  
• The Ugandan Electoral Commission has announced the wording of the question for the national referendum on party political reform scheduled to be held in Uganda [government website] in July. The referendum addresses whether Uganda will return to a multi-party political system, similar to the one it used to have, in time for next year's national presidential elections. Uganda currently operates under a system that allows for political parties to exist, but requires candidates for office to run as individuals, rather than representatives of parties. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni [official profile], in power for the last 19 years, has come out in support of the referendum, and is encouraging Ugandans to support it. Opposition parties also favor the referendum, but have expressed concern that Museveni will use the special session of parliament needed to amend the constitution to allow a multi-party electoral system to also amend the constitution to allow him to run for a third term, something he is currently prohibited from doing. AFP has more.
  
  
• Dinesh Chandra Pyakurel, former executive director of the Melamchi Water Supply Project, currently under investigation [JURIST report] by the Nepalese Royal Commission on Corruption Control, apparently committed suicide Thursday morning, according to police. Pyakurel ran the initial development of the Melamchi project, and later resumed the post of executive director after serving on the staff at the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works. Pyakurel was expected to be one of the several former government officials, including former Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba [Wikipedia profile] and former Interior Minister Prakashman Singh, targeted by the RCCC's list of criminal charges scheduled to be released Friday. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Nepal [JURIST news archive]. Kantipur Online has local coverage.

[JURIST] Concluding a four-day party congress Thursday, Syria's ruling Baath party [Wikipedia entry] called for political reforms and a broadening of press freedom in an effort to move away from the emergency law in place since the party took power in 1963. Though an immediate abandonment of the emergency law is not expected, Baath party officials say that significant changes [BBC reform profile] may occur, such as senior government positions no longer being limited to top Baath party officers. Party officials also point to some adjustment of Article 8 of the 1973 Syrian constitution [text], which currently identifies the Baath party as "the leading party in the society and state." Syria, pressured by the UN to withdraw from Lebanon [JURIST report] earlier this year, has been pushed by the US and some European nations to make reform to its economic and political infrastructure. Aljazeera has more.

[JURIST] Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Thursday that the trial of Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive] will commence in a "matter of months" and Hussein may face the death penalty if convicted in a fair trial. The death sentence was suspended in Iraq in 2003 under the US Coalition Provisional Authority [official website], but was afterwards reinstated by the interim Iraqi government. The Iraqi Special Tribunal [official website, in English] has denied [JURIST report] an earlier claim by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani that Saddam would be brought to trial under two months [JURIST report], and they have refused to set an exact schedule for his trial. Hussein is being charged with killing opposition politicians, gassing Kurds [BBC backgrounder], and harshly repressing Shiite and Kurdish uprisings [BBC backgrounder]. AP has more.

[JURIST] US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns [official profile] said Thursday that the US would release $10 million in economic aid to Serbia that had earlier been frozen due to Washington's unhappiness with Serbia's apparent unwillingness to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [official website]. Read the State Department press release. The change in policy comes as Serbia has stepped up efforts to capture or secure the surrender of the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, General Ratko Mladic [ICTY case backgrounder; indictment]. A video [ICTY excerpts via JURIST's Monitor] of six Bosnian Muslims being slaughtered by Serb paramilitaries was recently shown on Serbian television and has turned public and government attention towards the capture of war criminals [JURIST report]. Mladic is wanted on charges of genocide for the deaths of over 7,000 Muslims in Srebrenica [BBC timeline] in 1995. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] Despite increasing pressure to close the US military prison [JURIST report] for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld [official profile] said Thursday that the government did not have any plans to shut down the facility any time soon. Rumsfeld told a NATO news conference [MP3 audio] that the move to close Guantanamo Bay would raise many more questions, including what would become of the prisoners housed there. In a FOX News interview Wednesday, President Bush addressed the closing of Guantanamo Bay [JURIST report] and said that the government was "exploring all alternatives" for the future. Other Pentagon officials have also said that the detention center will not be closing. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) [official website] of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe released a report [PDF text] Thursday criticizing the United Kingdom's treatment of terrorist suspects in custody at Belmarsh Prison [official website]. In an accompanying press release, the CPT said that its visit to the facility in March 2004

focused on the impact of the conditions of detention on the mental and physical health of the detainees. It found that many of them were in a poor mental state as a result of their detention, and some were also in poor physical condition. Detention had caused mental disorders in the majority of persons detained under the ATCSA [Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001]. For those who had been subjected to traumatic experiences in the past, it had clearly reawakened the experience. The absence of control resulting from the indefinite character of detention, the uphill difficulty of challenging the detention and the fact of not knowing what evidence was being used against them had a detrimental effect on their health. The CPT concluded that for some of them, their situation at the time of the visit could be considered as amounting to inhuman and degrading treatment.

[JURIST] Lawyers for Mikhail Khodorkovsky [defense website, in English], former CEO of Russian oil firm Yukos [official website], appealed his conviction on tax evasion and fraud charges [JURIST report] Thursday to the Moscow City Court. Khodorkovsky was sentenced to nine years in prison [JURIST report] on May 31 after a marathon twelve-day reading of the verdict against him. Khodorkovsky's defense team has said that they don't expect the appeal to be heard until September [JURIST report] at the earliest. AFP has more. MosNews has local coverage.

[JURIST] As part of an administration effort to rally support for reauthorization of key provisions of the Patriot Act due to expire later this year [JURIST report], President Bush Thursday credited the Act with helping to secure the convictions of over 200 suspects [White House transcript] and denied that it impinged on civil liberties. In remarks at an Ohio police academy, he said that the flexibility of the Act [White House fact sheet] had led to the investigation and dissolution of terrorist cells in New York, Oregon, Virginia, and Florida. US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who accompanied the President on his Ohio visit and who appeared before Congress in April to urge reauthorization [JURIST report], discussed the renewal of the Patriot Act Wednesday at greater length in a radio interview [RealPlayer audio]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Qatar's new constitution [text] came into force Thursday, replacing the provisional constitution of 1970. The new charter permits parliamentary elections and provides the citizens of Qatar with the power to elect two-thirds of those members. The Emir will appoint the remaining one-third. A referendum held in April 2003 showed 99.6% support for the draft and the text was issued one year ago [JURIST report]. AKI has more.

[JURIST] Recently appointed US Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Coordinator for Iraq Richard Jones [press release] said Thursday that Iraq should look to Malaysia [constitutional text] as a model for the development of the Iraqi constitution. Jones pointed out that both countries have dealt with tensions resulting from multi-religious and multi-ethnic populations and both have had problems with insurgents. According to Jones, the economic and political campaigns Malaysia undertook to combat instability and insurgencies may be applicable to Iraq in its current state. Malaysian news service Bernama has more. While on a visit to Europe in April Jones suggested that Germany's federal constitution could also prove instructive [JURIST report].

[JURIST] In a program set to begin again this year on Friday, the US government plans to fly close to 34,000 illegal Mexican immigrants back to their home country [CBP press release] in what officials describe as an effort to reduce deaths resulting from human smuggling. Rights groups have charged that the $14.2 million dollar program does not effectively stop or slow illegal immigration. Customs and Border Protection [official website] Commissioner Robert Bonner [official profile] said Wednesday that the program, which drops immigrants back at their hometowns and is now entering its second year, is effective because it kept them away from the border and out of the hands of smugglers seeking to send them back into the US. Twice-daily flights from southern Arizona will run through the summer. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A broad-based group of booksellers, websites, and Internet service providers filed suit in federal court [complaint, PDF] in Utah Thursday, challenging a Utah law [ACLU press release] that calls for the state attorney general to create a list of websites "harmful to minors" and requires ISPs to provide customers with ways to block them. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff [official website] has halted implementation [Salt Lake Tribune report] of the law in anticipation of this suit. Laws targeting explicit web sites have already been previously overturned [CNET report] in several states, and a Pennsylvania law targeting ISPs similar to Utah's law was overturned [CNET report; PDF opinion] in September 2004. CNET has more.

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda [JURIST news archive; official website] put former Rwanda education minister Andre Rwamakuba on trial [official website] Thursday despite his refusal to attend the proceedings [official press release]. Rwamakuba is accused of making lists of Tutsi people to be killed and participated in killings himself; he is formally charged with genocide, complicity in genocide, extermination, and murder. He was arrested in October 1998 and is being held at a UN detention facility. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Wednesday that thousands of prisoners are being held in Iraq without due process, constituting "one of the major human rights challenges" faced by the country. In a report to the UN Security Council [official website] he noted that:

Despite the release of some detainees, their number continues to grow. Prolonged detention without access to lawyers and courts is prohibited under international law including during states of emergency

[JURIST] A French pensions court Thursday awarded disability benefits for a non-cancer illness contracted by soldier who participated in French nuclear testing [Wikipedia backgrounder] over 40 years ago in the Sahara desert. The ruling marked the first example in Feench law of testing compensation for diseases other than cancer, and opens the door for others to make similar claims. Andre Mezieres, 65, was stationed about 25 miles from "ground zero" and handled rock samples afterwards without any form of radiation protection. Five years ago he developed a degenerative muscle condition. The US government provides soldiers, other personnel and surviving beneficiaries with compensation for certain "cancers and other serious diseases" [official website] sustained during US nuclear testing [backgrounder] under the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act [claims under the act]. The New Zealand Herald has more.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Canada [official website] Thursday overturned a section of a Quebec law that prevented people from buying private insurance for procedures covered by public health care. The Quebec Hospital Insurance Act [text] was challenged [Canadian Press report] when a Montreal man complained that he would have to wait a year to get a hip replacement, and that it was illegal to pay for the procedure on his own in order to bypass the public wait. Although the court found that the challenged provisions violated the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text, PDF], the court found no violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [official backgrounder]. This means the ruling has no technical impact on the Canadian health care system as a whole, although observers expect some political fallout as Canadians continue to struggle with challenges to their once-robust public medicare system. Read the full text of the Supreme Court judgment. CBC News has more.

[JURIST] A Kenyan judge Thursday acquitted four men charged in the 2002 bombing of a hotel near Mombasa [Jersualem Post file report], ruling that prosecutors had failed to show a link between the men and the bombers or al Qaida, and that the men should not even had been charged [AFP report] because there was no prima facie case. Three suicide car bombers killed 15 people in the attack. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST news archive] denied at his trial on Wednesday that he was in charge of the unit shown killing six Bosnian Muslim youths [JURIST report] in a gruesome video that led to the arrest [JURIST report] of eight soldiers. Milosevic, under cross examination before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague, called the video a "compilation" and said it did not prove the victims were from Srebrenica [BBC timeline], where almost 8,000 people were killed in the summer of 1995. Linking Milosevic and his troops to the Srebrenica massacre is vital to the prosecution's genocide case. AP has more.

[JURIST] President Bush granted seven pardons on Wednesday to people who have all long since served their sentences for relatively minor offenses. Most of the recipients had been found guilty of commiting various white-collar crimes - one had been convicted of conspiracy to possess marijuana. Bush has issued 46 pardons since taking office; Bill Clinton issued 456, and George H.W. Bush issued just 77, the fewest since James A. Garfield [JURIST statistics]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The British government Thursday is reintroducing controversial legislation designed to curb religious hatred, despite criticism that the law would overly restrict speech. The law [Home Office backgrounder] was introduced last year, but didn't get through parliament before the general election. While the government defended the bill [Politics.co.uk report] as a way to protect people from hatred and racism, others have objected to the bill on grounds that it goes too far and stifles free expression. Noted British comedian Rowan Atkinson [Wikipedia profile], best known for his roles as the Blackadder and Mr. Bean, warned last December [JURIST report] in a Westminster press conference that the bill would threaten some of his sketches and other edgy religious humor such as the 1979 Monty Python film Life of Brian [Wikipedia backgrounder]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A German appeals court Thursday upheld the acquittal of Abdelghani Mzoudi, a Moroccan man charged with helping the September 11 hijackers. A lower court had previously decided there was not enough evidence against him. Despite the ruling [AP report], German authorities say that since Mzoudi's student visa is no longer valid, he must leave the country [Reuters report] in 14 days or be deported. Deutsche Welle has local coverage.

[JURIST] In response to Sunni demands for a greater role [JURIST report] in crafting Iraq's new constitution, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani [Wikipedia profile] announced Thursday that Sunnis will be given as many as 25 new seats on the committee with "full rights like other members who were elected by the parliament", meeting a concern that any additional Sunni members might not be able to vote on drafts. The Shiite-led Iraqi government had previously offered only 13 non-voting seats. Sunni Muslims, who currently hold only two of 55 seats on the current committee, threatened to pull out of the process if they were not given a bigger say. AP has more.

In a related development, it emerged Thursday that two special consultative committees have been set up to help the official parliamentary committee in the Iraqi constitution-drafting process. A member of Iraqi Islamic Party said that an Islamic consultative committee made up of Sunnis and Shiites had been formed to discuss constitutional questions before they are addressed in the parliamentary body, while the UN Secretary-General's personal representative in Baghdad said that an international consultative committee had been formed to assist the Iraqi political and constitutional process. UPI has more.

[JURIST] While jurors in the trial of former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy [JURIST news archive] still have not reached a verdict, the company itself settled SEC charges [SEC press release] on Wednesday related to his conduct and a company scheme to overstate earnings. HealthSouth [corporate website] will pay $100 million over two years, and promised continued cooperation with the SEC and the US Justice Department. Late last year, HealthSouth settled for $325 million [Birmingham News report] related to charges that they overbilled Medicare. AP has more.

[JURIST] Israel's Supreme Court [official website] ruled Thursday that the government's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip [JURIST news archive] and four West Bank settlements does not violate settlers' rights. Judges voted 10-1 [Jerusalem Post report] in favor of the Disengagement Implementation Law [Israel Foreign Ministry backgrounder on disengagement plan], noting that the lands in question are not within Israel's borders and not within their jurisdiction. The court, however, did reject four provisions [Haaretz report] of the law's compensation package for settlers, and ordered the Knesset [official site] to rework them. AP has more.