[JURIST] The UN Security Council voted unanimously Saturday to adopt a compromise resolution on recent missile tests [JURIST news archive] by North Korea (DPRK) [JURIST news archive] directing it to stop the launches and calling on member states to impose weapons-related sanctions, but did not invoke Chapter 7 [text] of the UN Charter as proposed by Japan in an earlier draft [JURIST report], which would have made its action binding and left open the possibility of military enforcement. China had previously said it would veto any resolution passed under Chapter 7 [JURIST report], but accepted language [Resolution 1695 text] saying that the Council was "acting under its special responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security." US UN Ambassador John Bolton said that if North Korea did not comply with the resolution the matter could come back to the Council for further action.

North Korean UN representative Pak Gil Yon immediately rejected the resolution on behalf of his government, saying that "that the Security Council was not justified in taking up his country’s missile launch exercise, both in view of the competence of the Council and of international law", according to a UN summary of the Council session. He further insisted:

The exercise was a legitimate right of a sovereign State and was neither bound to any international law, nor to bilateral or multilateral agreements, such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea–Japan Pyongyang Declaration and the joint statement of the six-party talks. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was not a signatory to the missile technology control regime and, therefore, not bound to any commitment under it.

As for the moratorium on long-range missile test flights that his country had agreed to with the United States in 1999, it had been valid only when the United States-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea dialogue was under way, he said. The Bush Administration had scrapped all the agreements signed by previous administrations. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea had clarified that its moratorium had lost its validity in 2005. The same could be said regarding the moratorium that his country had agreed to with Japan in 2002. In the Pyongyang Declaration, his Government had expressed its intention to extend beyond 2003 the moratorium on missile firing, in the spirit of the Declaration, on the premise that Japan would normalize its relations with his country and redeem its past. The Japanese authorities, however, had abused his country’s good faith and pursued a hostile policy. That had brought the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea-Japanese relations to what they had been before the Declaration.

[JURIST] Italian prosecutors on Saturday questioned Nicolo Pollari, chief of the Italian Intelligence and Security Services [official website], regarding his role in the alleged CIA extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive] of Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr [Wikipedia profile], also known as Abu Omar. Italian police arrested two intelligence officials [JURIST report] with the Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISMI) [official website; Wikipedia backgrounder] earlier this month in connection with the kidnapping. According to a judicial source the questioning lasted approximately four hours and took place under heavy security.

Pollari, along with other senior intelligence members and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have denied any role in Nasr's alleged kidnapping by US CIA operatives, which the Council of Europe has cited [JURIST report] as an example of the "global spider's web" [COE graphic] of secret prisons and rendition flights operated by the CIA in Europe. COE investigator Dick Marty has stated, however, that "it is unlikely that the Italian authorities were not aware of this large-scale CIA operation." Arrest warrants stemming from the 2003 abduction remain for 26 Americans, most of whom are believed to be CIA agents. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Politicians, civil rights advocates and privacy advocates have criticized the recent White House agreement [JURIST report] allowing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) [FJC backgrounder] to determine the constitutionality of the NSA's controversial domestic spying program [JURIST news archive]. In reaction to the plan US Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) [official website] plans to re-introduce a proposal [H. Amdt. 1065 to H.R. 5631] blocking NSA funding unless intelligence warrants are used prior to surveillance. The bill has failed twice, drawing four Republican supporters on its first vote and 23 on the second. US Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-NM) [official website], chair of the House Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, proposed legislation Friday [press release] to strengthen Congressional oversight of the NSA and "modernize and simplify the process of getting a FISA warrant."

Civil rights advocates, including representatives from the Center for Constitutional Rights [official website] in New York, The Electronic Frontier Foundation [official website, press release] and the Center for National Security Studies [official website] have also spoken out against the plan, voicing concern with the secrecy of the FISC and the plan's concentration of power in that body. Specter responded to the criticism, stating that the critics should focus on the oversight allowed by the proposal, emphasizing that "this is an important step." While President Bush has agreed to sign legislation authorizing the agreement, Congress must still approve the plan. Saturday's New York Times has more.

[JURIST] Former NatWest [corporate website] bankers David Bermingham, Giles Darby and Gary Mulgrew, pleaded not guilty Friday to a total of seven counts of wire fraud [indictment, PDF] for an allegedly fraudulent sale of Enron stock. The bankers were extradited to the US [JURIST report] Thursday following a three year court battle to prevent the extradition. The extradition also prompted protests from British MPs [JURIST report] who argued that the US-UK Extradition Treaty [text, PDF; Statewatch backgrounder] is "lopsided." Upon hearing the three bankers' pleas, US Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith accepted the $100,000 offered by Bermingham and Darby and $20,000 offered by Mulgrew as security and released them into the custody of their attorney Dan Cogdell.

During their release the defendants must wear electronic monitoring devices and follow a curfew, but the men requested the ability to return to the UK following the bail hearing scheduled for July 21. Magistrate Smith had insufficient information to decide the issue Friday, and Assistant US Attorney Leo Wise insisted the men should remain in the country throughout their prosecution. The trial is scheduled to begin September 11. Bloomberg has more. The Houston Chronicle has local coverage.

[JURIST] Leandro Despouy, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights' Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, on Friday expressed "serious concern" over a recently passed Egyptian judicial reforms bill [JURIST report]. Despouy said:

Concerning the text of the law, the Special Rapporteur expressed particular concern over the fact that it does not set out clear criteria for the selection and appointment of judges and of the Chief Prosecutor, that it fails to recognize the right of judges to form and join associations of judges to represent their interests and protect their judicial independence, and that it does not set out objective criteria for the assignment of cases to judges, which would allow heads of courts to assign specific judges to cases against the right of every citizen to their natural judge. The law also fails to clearly address the separation between the prosecution and the executive power.

Moreover, the Special Rapporteur is seriously concerned by the fact that the law does not provide judges with basic fair trial guarantees in the framework of disciplinary procedures. The law prevents judges to be represented by a lawyer to defend themselves before a disciplinary court, and does not provide them with an effective right to challenge a disciplinary decision before a higher court, in breach of the constitutional and internationally recognized right of every person to have a judicial decision reviewed by a higher tribunal and to be represented by a lawyer of one's own choice before a court.

Finally, the law keeps the system whereby judges are seconded to perform non-judiciary work within the executive branch and raises the period of secondment from three to six years. Such secondment is incompatible with the separation of power and the independence of the judiciary. More worryingly, no objective criteria are set for decisions of secondment: therefore such decisions can be used as a significant pressure on judges to threaten them or reward them, and therefore seriously infringes their independence.

[JURIST] The Chinese Ministry of Health [official website] has approved new regulations [Xinhua report] governing the use and international transport of corpses in an attempt to crackdown on the illegal trade of organs. China has been criticized [BTS press release, DOC] in recent months for harvesting and selling the organs of executed prisoners without the consent of the prisoners or their families, but Chinese officials said in April that the use of organs without consent was illegal [JURIST report] and rarely occurred. The new regulation, which will take effect August 1, bans the use bodies for any purpose other than medical research and requires government approval before bodies may be transported in or out of the country for burial.

Separate regulations banning the sale of human organs [JURIST report], requiring written consent from organ donors and limiting the number of hospitals at which transplants are performed took effect July 1. AFP has more.