[JURIST] The Appeals Court of Paris [official website, in French] Friday struck down the CNE, contrat nouvelles embauches [authorizing ordinance, in French; Wikipedia backgrounder] as a violation of international and basic French labor standards, dealing a setback to efforts by French President Nicolas Sarkozy [official profile; BBC profile] to open the French labor market. The CNE, a model contract which reduced barriers to hiring and firing in small firms with a maximum of 20 employees, was strongly opposed by labor unions before and after it came into force in 2005. Laurence Parisot, president of MEDEF [trade website], the French employers association, said in a statement [text] that she was "astonished" at the ruling.

An analogous contract allowing at-will terminations by employers of first contracts, the so-called CPE, contrat premiere embauche [JURIST news archive] was signed into law [JURIST report] in April 2006 by then-President Jacques Chirac, but was effectively repealed and replaced [JURIST report] after mass protests [JURIST report] across France. The Financial Times has more.

[JURIST] Bilal Abdulla, the driver of the burning vehicle involved in last weekend's attack on the Glasgow International Airport [AP report; JURIST report], appeared in court Saturday to face conspiracy to cause explosion charges for his alleged role in the failed bombing and the foiled terror plots in London. Abdulla, an Iraqi-trained doctor born in Britain, is the the first person to be charged in the plot and one of seven suspects detained in the United Kingdom. Another suspect has been detained in Australia in connection with the terror plots.

On Friday, UK Crown Prosecution Service [official website] counter terrorism division head Susan Hemming indicated that there was sufficient evidence to charge Abdulla. Another participant in the alleged terror attack is currently under guard in a hospital due to self-inflicted burns. Reuters has more. AFP has additional coverage.

[JURIST] US military judge Lt. Col. John Head ruled Friday that the refiling of charges [JURIST report] in the court-martial of US Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada [advocacy website; JURIST news archive] after a February mistrial [JURIST report] does not constitute double jeopardy and will not violate Watada's Fifth Amendment right. Watada, a 28-year old Honolulu native who is the first commissioned officer in the US military to publicly refused to deploy to Iraq [JURIST report] in June 2006, is charged with four counts of conduct unbecoming an officer and one count of missing movements. His lawyers have already filed a notice of appeal to the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals (ACCA) [official website]. If convicted at court-martial, Watada could be sentenced up to six years in prison and receive a dishonorable discharge from the Army. Watada's new trial, which was scheduled to begin July 23, will likely be delayed pending the ACCA's ruling.

Watada has refused to be classified as a conscientious objector because he does not object to war in general, just to the "illegal" war in Iraq. He offered to serve in Afghanistan, but the US Army refused. His vocal protests and participation in rallies by Veterans for Peace [advocacy website] and Courage to Resist [advocacy website] led to the charges of conduct unbecoming an officer and an initial charge of contempt towards officials. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] Friday rejected allegations made by a US Army officer previously involved in Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) [DOD materials] proceedings at Guantanamo Bay that the CSRTs were pressured to declare detainees "enemy combatants" [JURIST report] based on vague or incomplete evidence. The Department said in a court filing [PDF text] that a sworn statement made by Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham "addresses the conduct of CSRT proceedings in only a handful of unnamed cases" and is therefore not relevant to detainee cases before the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals. The DOJ characterized Abraham's declaration as "innuendo," and defended the additional review of tribunal determinations by the CSRT Director as being "critical to national security." Responding to Abraham's criticism that US intelligence agencies often arbitrarily withheld information from both the prosecution and defense, government lawyers said saying that "nothing in the CSRT procedures remotely requires the Recorder to conduct a de novo search for the information held by other agencies or double-check the work performed by other agencies in responding to requests for relevant information."

Abraham, a 26-year veteran of military intelligence and formerly a liaison officer between the CSRT and the intelligence agencies, made the allegations in a June affidavit [PDF text] on behalf of Fawzi al-Odah [Amnesty International profile], a Kuwaiti detainee who is currently challenging his status as an "enemy combatant." AP has more.