[JURIST] The US Department of Defense [official website] announced Saturday that it has transferred to Afghanistan five detainees [press release] formerly held as enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. It is unclear where these detainees are from and why they were selected for transfer. More than 300 detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo to other countries since the US government starting holding suspected terrorists at the US naval base [official website] there in January 2002. It was reported in January that an Afghanistan prison was being improved [JURIST report] to accommodate 100 Guantanamo detainees expected to be transferred there in the near future.

About 120 of the Guantanamo's remaining 445 detainees [list; JURIST report] are eligible for transfer or release. Final decisions on such matters rest on talks between the US and the potential destination countries. UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak [official website] told an Austrian radio station in June that European governments could help bring about the closing of the controversial detention center [JURIST report] by accepting detainees [JURIST report] for detention in their home countries. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A US journalist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner [citations] working in Africa on a National Geographic [media website] magazine assignment was charged in a Sudanese court Saturday with espionage, reporting false information and entering the country illegally. Paul Salopek [official profile], a staff reporter for the Chicago Tribune [media website], and two Chad nationals - Salopek's driver and his interpreter - were arrested August 6 after allegedly crossing into the war-torn Darfur [JURIST news archive] region of Sudan [JURIST news archive], from Chad without a visa. Both National Geographic and the Chicago Tribune have released statements defending Salopek and appealing for his safe return.

In National Geographic's statement [text], the magazine's editor was quoted as saying:

[Salopek] had no agenda other than to fairly and accurately report on the region. He is a world-recognized journalist of the highest standing, with a deep knowledge and respect for the continent of Africa and its people.

Our colleague and dear friend, Paul Salopek, is one of the most accomplished and admired journalists of our time. He is not a spy. Our fervent hope is that the authorities in Sudan will recognize his innocence and quickly allow Paul to return home to his wife, Linda, and to his colleagues.

[JURIST] Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock told Australian TV [Sky News Australia report] Saturday that he has received assurances from the US government that it will not seek the death penalty in an anticipated new military trial of Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks [JURIST news archive]. Legal proceedings against Hicks were suspended earlier this year after the US Supreme Court ruled in June in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [JURIST document] that military commissions established by the President to try Hicks and other accused terror suspects at Guantanamo were not authorized by law. In an effort to gain Congressional endorsement of Guantanamo trials the Bush administration is currently drafting a revised plan for military commissions [JURIST report] loosely based on military courts-martial [JURIST report]. The US did not seek the death penalty against Hicks [JURIST report] in the original proceeding.

Ruddock said earlier this month that he would press for Hick's return [JURIST report] if the US process against him is not restarted by November. Hicks has been solitary confinement for the past five months and his US military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, says he health is deteriorating [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Louisiana Supreme Court [official website] Friday upheld the constitutionality [opinion, PDF] of two state laws extending the time limit for making insurance claims for damages suffered in Hurricanes Katrina [JURIST news archive] and Rita. The rulings allow homeowners, renters, drivers with auto insurance and nonfederal flood insurance policyholders to file as late as Sept. 1, 2007 in respect to Katrina and as late as Oct. 1, 2007 for Rita. The Supreme Court action was brought by the Louisiana Attorney General, seeking review of a lower court ruling that had taken the same position. State officials acknowledged that the process was unusual, but Attorney General Charles Foti [official website; press release on Friday's ruling] indicated that he wanted to resolve the matter definitively. The ten insurance companies named as defendants in the action argued unsuccessfully that the state laws retroactively altered the terms of existing contracts without the companies' consent, and that such a practice would have negative consequences for the insurance industry and ultimately the public.

For the court, Justice Chet Traylor wrote:

The Contract Clause of the United States Constitution provides that “[n]o state shall ... pass any ... law impairing the Obligations of Contracts.” United States Constitution Article I, Section 10. Similarly, the Contract Clause of the Louisiana Constitution states that “[n]o bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts shall be enacted.” La. Const. Art. 1, Section 23. This court has previously described these constitutional provisions as “virtually identical” and “substantially equivalent.” Morial, 2000-1132 p. 12, 785 So.2d at 13; Segura, 1993-
1271 p. 20, 630 So.2d at 728.

Although the language of these constitutional clauses appears unambiguously absolute, “the Contract Clause does not operate to obliterate the police power of the States.” Allied Structural Steel Co. v. Spannaus, 438 U.S. 234, 241, 98 S.Ct. 2716, 2721, 57 L.Ed.2d 727 (1978).

It is the settled law of this court that the interdiction of statutes impairing the obligation of contracts does not prevent the State from exercising such powers as are vested in it for the promotion of the common weal, or are necessary for the general good of the public, though contracts previously entered into between individuals may thereby be affected. This power, which, in its various ramifications, is known as the police power, is an exercise of the sovereign right of the Government to protect the lives, health, morals, comfort and general welfare of the people, and is paramount to any rights under contracts between individuals.

Allied Structural Steel, 438 U.S. at 241, 98 S.Ct. at 2721, quoting Manigault v. Springs, 199 U.S. 473, 480, 26 S.Ct. 127, 130, 50 L.Ed.2d 272 (1905). Thus, the prohibition contained in the Contract Clause “must be accommodated to the inherent power of the state to safeguard the vital interests of its people.” Energy Reserves Group, Inc. v. Kansas Power & Light Co., 459 U.S. 400, 410, 103 S.Ct. 697, 704, 74 L.Ed.2d 569 (1983) (internal citation omitted).

[JURIST] A UN General Assembly panel [official website] late Friday approved by consensus a draft disability rights treaty, clearing the way for its formal adoption by the Assembly at its 61st annual session beginning in September prior to being open to signatures. The draft of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ran into last-minute difficulties [JURIST report] earlier this week in the face of over 150 proposed amendments [texts] and disagreements about the scope of enshrined sexual and reproductive freedoms, but finally won endorsement in an evening session. Top UN officials, including High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, had pressed for the approval of the draft [JURIST report].

The Convention is the first human rights treaty of the 21st century and is designed to encourage governments to pass legislation protecting people with disabilities and to eliminate discriminatory laws and practices. Only 45 countries in the world currently have disability legislation, including the United States, which adopted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) official website] in 1990. The US has indicated, however, that it will not sign [New Standard report] the new international accord, insisting that US domestic measures on the federal, state and local levels are already adequate for the purpose. Critics say the US position is a slight to the principle of international regulation and monitoring. The treaty is expected to take effect in 2008 or 2009 after the necessary number of ratifications has been reached. Reuters has more. BBC News has additional coverage.

[JURIST] At the end of the first US trial of a foreign head of government since that of Panama's Manuel Noriega, a US federal judge in San Francisco Friday sentenced former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko [Wikipedia profile; defense website] to nine years imprisonment on corruption-related charges. US prosecutors indicted Lazarenko for money laundering, wire fraud, extortion and other crimes [RFE/RL report] after he claimed asylum in the US in 1999 in the wake of several alleged assassination attempts against him. The charges were laid in connection with various Ukrainian business schemes he was involved in during the 1990s in which at least $114 million taken from Ukrainian sources was illegally passed through US banks.

Originally convicted [JURIST report] by a federal jury in 2004, 15 of the original 29 charges against Lazarenko were later dismissed [JURIST report], but the most serious charges were sustained. The former Ukrainian leader has been under house arrest in the US since his conviction. AP has more.