[JURIST] The US Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] Thursday voted 11-8 in support of a measure that would return habeas corpus rights to terror suspects imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] military prison. The Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 [S 185 text, PDF], sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), would allow Guantanamo detainees to challenge their detention in US federal courts for the first time since the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [PDF text] revoked that right. The bill, passed in committee without debate, was unanimously supported by Committee Democrats; Specter was its only Republican supporter. It is expected to be attached next month as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2008 [HR 1585 materials]. AP has more.

Also Thursday, a legal advisor to the US Department of State [official website] said that the Bush administration is considering appealing this week's decision to dismiss charges against Guantanamo detainees Omar Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan [JURIST reports]. Both cases were dismissed by a military judge for lack of jurisdiction due to the detainees' classification as "enemy combatants" and not "unlawful enemy combatants," as required under the Military Commissions Act. Given 72 hours to enter an appeal, John Bellinger [official profile] said government lawyers may seek to have the prisoners reclassified as unlawful enemy combatants by Combatant Status Review Tribunals [DOD materials], an unprecedented move. Last week Bellinger said that the United States might not release Khadr [CP report] even if he were acquitted, asserting that the the US would still have the right to detain him as an enemy combatant in the war on terror. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and new French President Nicolas Sarkozy [JURIST news archives] agreed at the G8 summit [official website] in Germany Thursday that the controversial European constitution [text] should be reconstituted into a "simplified treaty" whose ratification would not require the support of the voters of individual countries. Voters in France and the Netherlands notoriously rejected the original draft constitution in national referenda in 2005, effectively derailing the ratification process and throwing the constitution into legal limbo.

Several countries, including Italy [JURIST report], have publicly opposed the idea of a "simplified treaty", and seek to retain the document as drafted. The current version of the constitution has been ratified by 18 EU states thus far. Although his country already passed the constitution through a referendum, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero late last month joined Sarkozy's call [JURIST report] for a limited treaty. Sarkozy first proposed a limited treaty [JURIST report] in February while he was still France's interior minister. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official website] Thursday renewed [ICC press release; UN press release] his call [JURIST report] for the arrests of two top suspects accused of committing war crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan [JURIST news archive]. Moreno-Ocampo briefed UN Security Council (UNSC) [official website] delegates one week prior to their joint trip with African Union (AU) [official website] representatives to several African capital cities to lay out a "hybrid force" peacekeeping effort. The suspects, former Sudanese interior minister and current humanitarian affairs minister Ahmad Muhammad Harun and former militia leader Ali Muhammad Al Abd-Al-Rahman (also known as Ali Kushayb) [TrialWatch profiles], are each accused of nearly 50 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Moreno-Ocampo underscored the importance that every African nation helping to apprehend the suspects and urged the Security Council to "take the lead" in bringing them before a court.

Next week, the UN-AU team will seek approval from Sudanese officials to take over the peacekeeping mission and to deploy forces into Darfur. The ICC has conducted its own investigation into war crimes [ICC materials] in Sudan, and in May issued arrest warrants [JURIST report] for Harun and Abd-Al-Rahman. Sudan has repeatedly rejected the ICC's jurisdiction [JURIST report], with officials holding that Sudanese courts are capable of investigating and prosecuting the alleged war crimes. Under the ICC's Rome Statute [PDF text], the ICC can only prosecute individuals for war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity when a state is unwilling or unable to genuinely prosecute. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers for former US vice-presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense website; JURIST news archive] asked a federal judge Thursday to delay Libby's prison sentence because they felt they have a good chance of winning an appeal of his conviction. Libby was found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice in March, and sentenced to 2 1/2- years in prison [JURIST reports] on Tuesday.

Defense lawyers filed papers with the court Thursday arguing that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald [official profile] did not have the authority to bring charges against Libby, and that they were wrongly barred from questioning NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell [MSNBC profile] about certain aspects of the Valerie Plame scandal [JURIST news archive]. Earlier this week, US District Judge Reggie B. Walton said there was no reason that Libby should not begin serving his sentence while his case is on appeal. AP has more.

[JURIST] UK Home Secretary John Reid [official profile] proposed a number of changes [PDF text; press release] to UK anti-terror laws in a statement to the House of Commons Thursday, calling for longer pre-charge detention of terror suspects, "enhanced" sentences, allowing electronic intercepts as evidence, and institution of "stop and question" powers for police. No formal legislation has been introduced as yet, however, and Reid said reviews and consultations on the proposed measures would be undertaken and the government was committed to discussing the issue with interested organizations, including police, the judiciary, civil liberties groups and communities. Reid also said he has asked Lord Carlile [official profile], the independent reviewer of counter-terrorism legislation, to write a report on the proposals. Reid also tempered his prior calls for the UK to opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights [PDF text], a plan discouraged [JURIST report] by Lord Carlile. Now Reid appears to support rethinking the rights treaty, perhaps seeking a multinational amendment.

Incoming Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer slated to take over from incumbent Tony Blair in three weeks, said on Sunday that will support the detention limit increase [JURIST report]. Many UK Conservatives oppose extending the limit, with some calling the current 28-day limit "draconian." BBC News has more.

[JURIST] Chile's chief prosecutor Thursday urged that former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori [personal website; JURIST news archive] be extradited to Peru to face charges of corruption and human rights abuses, some arising from the 1992 Cantuta University massacre [Wikipedia backgrounder] in which nine students and a university professor were "disappeared" by the Peruvian military. The prosecutor released her recommendation before a Chilean court decides whether to honor Peru's extradition request [JURIST report].

Fujimori fled to Japan in 2000 amidst corruption and human rights allegations for activities during his presidency in the 1990s. In November 2005, he flew into Chile as part of a plan to campaign for the presidency of Peru despite having been officially banned from holding public office [JURIST report] until 2010. He was arrested and detained at Peru's request [JURIST report]. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The US House of Representatives Thursday passed the Stem Cell Enhancement Act of 2007 [S.5 materials] 247-176 [roll call], sending it to a recalcitrant President George W. Bush for signature barely two months after its Senate passage [JURIST report]. If signed into law, the bill would amend the Public Health Service Act [text] to allow for additional embryonic stem cell [JURIST news archive] research. In a statement issued [press release] shortly after the bill's adoption in the House, however, Bush expressed disappointment at what he characterized as an "old bill that would simply overturn our country's carefully balanced policy on embryonic stem cell research" and indicated that he would veto it. The House vote occurred mainly along party lines, with 210 Democrats and 37 Republicans supported the measure, while 16 Democrats and 160 Republicans opposed.

Many researchers believe that embryonic stem cell research [NIH backgrounder] should be pursued because it could result in medical advancements that may treat diabetes, central nervous system injuries, and degenerative diseases like Parkinson's disease. Supporters also say that embryos already created for the purposes of in vitro fertilization (IVF) [backgrounder] are generally destroyed or indefinitely stored. Critics say that the embryos are human life and the research violates moral principles. In January, the House voted 253-174 [roll call; JURIST report] to pass an initial version of the bill, but needed to vote again after the Senate voted 63-34 [roll call; JURIST report] to approve a slightly different version. In July of last year, Bush vetoed [JURIST report] the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 [PDF text; HR 810 summary], saying he would not provide federal funding for stem cell research because many consider the destruction of embryos to be murder [press briefing]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany [official website, in German] Wednesday ruled [opinion, in German] that a February 2005 referendum approving the construction of a bridge across the Dresden Elbe Valley [UNESCO backgrounder], a UNESCO World Heritage Site [official website], takes precedence over the objections of the city council because it was a direct expression of residents' democratic choice. In July of last year, the council voted 39-29 to approve a measure requesting the Mayor of Dresden to suspend the construction of the bridge [UNESCO report] because the 18-km long valley might lose its status after the World Heritage Committee threatened to remove the valley [UNESCO report] from the World Heritage List.

UNESCO says that "no site has ever been struck off the World Heritage List," which currently declares 812 properties to be of "outstanding universial value." In issuing its decision, the court noted that the 1972 World Heritage Convention [PDF text] "fully [respects] the sovereignty of the States on whose territory the cultural and natural heritage... is situated." AP has more.

[JURIST] A Swiss court Thursday cleared nineteen former executives and consultants of the now-defunct Swissair Group [Wikipedia backgrounder] of all charges Thursday in connection with their role in the collapse of the national airline that was once nicknamed the "flying bank" for its financial stability. Presiding judge Andreas Fischer ruled that the prosecution had failed to demonstrate that the defendants acted unreasonably in implementing a reorganization plan approved in March 24, 2001 and also failed to prove that the defendants' actions contributed to the airline's bankruptcy or that they intended to hurt investors. Swissair, approximately 30 percent owned by the Swiss government [official website], became the first major airline to collapse in October 2001 following the September 11 terrorist attacks [JURIST news archive] in the United States.

Swiss prosecutors, who are currently investigating other allegations of executive misconduct in the late-1990s, say they will study the judgment carefully before making a decision on whether to appeal. The former executives and consultants face three separate civil suits involving damages of approximately $490 million. Wenger Plattner [firm website], a Swiss law firm currently handling Swissair's liquidation, estimates that creditors have filed claims totaling $23 billion. AP has more. Bloomberg has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Hate crimes [JURIST news archive] are on the rise throughout Europe [report text; press release], rights watchdog Human Rights First [advocacy website] reported Thursday in a study examining recent hate crimes in France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. Hate crimes against Muslims in London rose by approximately 600 percent following the 2005 London bombings [JURIST news archive], according to the study. It also looked into the "genres" of hate crimes, ranging from antisemitism and Islamophobia, to bias based on sexual orientation and physical or mental disability. The study found that antisemitic attackers often justify their actions as criticism of Israel and the ongoing Middle East conflict [JURIST news archive].

HRF urged European governments to implement harsher penalties for perpetrators of hate crimes, strengthen police enforcement of hate crime laws, and establish monitoring systems to provide accurate data on targeted minority groups. The report was released just before the start of an international conference on combating discrimination [press release; event website] being held in Romania by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) [official website]. Haaretz has more.

[JURIST] Canada is stalling the discussion and adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [text], according to a Thursday statement by Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website]. The declaration was adopted by the UN Human Rights Council [official website] by a vote of 30-2 [press release] with 12 abstentions in June of last year, and has been submitted for a vote in the UN General Assembly since late-2006. Canada and Russia were the only two members on the Human Rights Council to oppose the adoption of the declaration. AI accuses the Conservative Party government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper [official website; JURIST news archive] of actively lobbying other states with questionable human rights records to oppose the declaration. Harper's government has denied the allegations, saying it is instead seeking to reach a broad agreement amongst the international community.

Since taking power, Harper's government has been criticized for failing to honor the Kelowna Accord [backgrounder], an agreement between Canada and indigenous leaders that committed $5 billion over a period of 10 years to address poverty on Canada's First Nations reserves [backgrounder]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Dr. Julie Gerberding [official profile], Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) [official websites], testified [recorded video] before the US Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies [official website] Wednesday in the wake of a tuberculosis scare that US interstate and foreign quarantine regulations [CFR Title 42 text] needs to be codified to reflect up-to-date disease containment methods such as isolation and quarantine. Gerberding said that "more explicit due process protections for written orders and an administrative review hearing" were necessary, as well as expanding the availability and reporting of ill passengers on aircraft. Gerberding also emphasized the need to tighten health security at ports of entry by increasing information sharing, detection equipment, and medically-trained staff.

Gerberding's recommendations follow an ongoing investigation of US citizen Andrew Speaker who traveled [flight itinerary] from Italy back into the United States by the way of the Czech Republic and Canada despite being instructed to cancel all his flight plans following a diagnosis of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) [CDC backgrounder]. Speaker also testified at the hearing by phone. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) [official website] and the CDC had requested that the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) [official website] detain the patient upon his re-entry into the US, but according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) [official website], a Border Patrol agent ignored the flag and allowed Speaker to reenter the US. He remains in quarantine under the authority of the Denver County health officials. The Washington Times has more.

[JURIST] An Italian jury acquitted all five defendants accused of murdering banker Roberto Calvi [BBC profile] Wednesday after almost two days of deliberation. Italian prosecutors have not yet decided whether to appeal the acquittal. Calvi, who was found hung under London's Blackfriars Bridge in June 1982, was known as "God's Banker" for his financial ties to the Vatican.

Calvi's death, which was initially ruled a suicide [BBC report] but later ruled to be homicide [BBC report] following the exhumation of his body in 2002, followed the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano after the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans issued in reliance on letters of credit from the Vatican. The Vatican subsequently paid Banco Ambrosiano's creditors $250 million, although it denied wrongdoing. AP has more.

[JURIST] Major General Nadeem Ijaz, the director general of Pakistan's Military Intelligence (MI) and a close relative of President General Pervez Musharraf, filed an affidavit with the Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] Thursday alleging that suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry [official website; JURIST news archive] wanted Musharraf to dissolve the government and appoint Chaudhry leader of an interim government and also wanted intelligence formation about other judges months before his March 9 suspension [JURIST report]. Munir A. Malik, a lawyer for the suspended chief justice, said the allegations were lies and said that he still wanted to cross-examine Musharraf in court.

Ijaz's affidavit was accompanied by two others filed by Aijaz Shah, head of the Intelligence Bureau, and Lieutenant General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kiyani, director general of the Inter Services Intelligence, who were all present at the March 9 meeting between Musharraf and Chaudhry. Shah claims that Chaudhry had sought his assistance in suppressing media reports about his alleged misconduct. The statements are in response to an affidavit submitted by Chaudhry's lawyers last Tuesday, in which Chaudhry claims he was detained against his will and pressed to resign [IHT report]. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled [opinion, PDF] Wednesday that victims of forced abortions are "statutorily entitled" to prevent their removal from the United States by requesting asylum under Sec. 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act [text]. The court reversed an immigration judge's finding that the petitioner, Chinese national Tang Zi Zhi and his wife Zhen Li, had failed to establish that an employer-imposed abortion was "forced" because it was not performed "pursuant to any official summons." The appeals court said that the top-to-bottom "structure of the Chinese population control program" means that employers who impose population controls over employees were acting to further official policies. The court also reversed the immigration judge's holding that neither Tang or Zhen had expressed opposition or made "efforts to avoid" the abortion because neither had gone into hiding to avoid the procedure. The court also held that a "partner of a woman who had a forced abortion" is also entitled to the withholding of removal by asylum.

A recent study [materials] published in the Standford Law Review found that US immigration courts are inconsistent in granting asylum to applicants [JURIST report]. The SLR study echoes another report [materials] conducted by Syracuse University, which found widespread complaints from lawyers, federal appeals court judges, and other immigration legal professionals concerning numerous instances of failures by immigration judges to provide a "fair, expeditious, and uniform application of the nation's immigration laws in all cases." China's controversial "One Child Policy" [backgrounder], which has been imposed since 1979, seeks to control and reverse the growth of China's 1.3 billion people. In May, thousands of framers in southwestern China reportedly rioted [JURIST report] due to efforts by local government officials to more strictly enforce the "One Child Policy." State media later reported the arrest of 28 people for their alleged role in the riots [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] At least 39 "ghost detainees" [press release, PDF] have been held by the US CIA in secret detention facilities, according to a report [PDF text; executive summary, PDF] jointly published Thursday by six leading human rights groups, including Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and Human Rights Watch. The report specifically identifies three detainees, Pakistani Hassan Ghul, Saudi Ali Abu al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi, and Libyan Ali Abdul-Hamid al-Fakhiri, whose detention by the United States has been "officially acknowledged" but whose fate and whereabouts remain unknown. Ghul and al-Fakhiri are believed to have been held at a CIA-operated secret detention facility in Poland [JURIST report]. All three detainees were included in the "Terrorists No Longer a Threat" List [transcript] that was read into the US Congressional Record last July.

The report also highlighted the detention of family members, including children of detained suspected terrorists, some of whom have been subjected to "coercive treatment" to further the purpose of obtaining information about detainees. One instance cited was the detention and interrogation of Khalid Sheik Mohammed's two sons, Yusef al-Khalid and Abed al-Khalid, then nine and seven-years old. The children's detention was confirmed [Daily Telegraph report] by a CIA official in 2003, who said that their detention and the "promise of their release and their return to Pakistan" was a "psychological lever" to be used against Khalid Sheik Mohammed [BBC profile; CSRT transcript, PDF].

The rights groups urged [press release] the US to end its "silence" on the so-called "ghost detainees," and reiterated that the US has a duty to "detain and bring to justice" criminals "in a manner that respects human rights and the rule of law." The report also calls for the US and foreign states that allow the US to base secret detention facilities within their borders to grant access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) [official website] and either promptly charge the detainees with a "recognizable criminal offense" and bring them to trial before a court that meets international standards or release them. In February, the European Parliament condemned European states [JURIST report] - including Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the UK, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Turkey, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bosnia, and Romania for their cooperation in illegal secret prisons and extraordinary rendition flights [JURIST report]. Several states were also accused of obstructing European probes into the secret prison allegations, including Poland [JURIST report], which allegedly housed the largest CIA secret detention facility in Europe [JURIST report]. President Bush acknowledged the existence of the secret CIA facilities [JURIST report] last September, but provided no details on their location or operation. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate voted 49-48 [roll call] Wednesday evening to approve an amendment [S Amdt 1316] to the proposed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 [S 1348 summary; JURIST report], restricting the Y-1 temporary guest worker visa program to five years. An earlier attempt [S Amdt 1181 materials] to limit the proposed temporary guest visa program was rejected by a 48-49 vote [roll call] two weeks earlier. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) [official website], who sponsored both amendments, has previously characterized [press release] the guest worker program as "part of [an] agenda to put downward pressure on the wages of American working men and women." Supporters of the visa program believe it provides a legal avenue for foreign workers to meet the US demand for laborers.

In May, the Senate trimmed the proposed temporary guest worker program [JURIST report] from its previous maximum limit of 600,000 guest workers a year to 200,000. The proposal has received bipartisan criticism [JURIST report] for being too large. Opponents of the immigration reform bill say it amounts to "amnesty" for up to 12 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States, and others have objected to restrictions on the right of legal immigrants to bring their families to the US. On Saturday, US President George W. Bush renewed the White House's push for the passage [JURIST report] of the immigration reform bill, defending the proposal from criticism that it amounts to "amnesty" by insisting it brings consequences for those who enter the US illegally. AP has more.