[JURIST] US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel Schwarzenberg [official profiles] Tuesday signed [press statement] an agreement allowing the US to install ballistic missile radar systems in the Czech Republic, prompting an immediate Russian threat of a "military-technical" response if the deal is implemented. The two signatories worked out most of the details [joint statement] of the agreement in April, but it has yet to be approved by the Czech parliament. An estimated two-thirds of Czechs oppose the pact and over 1000 protesters demonstrated Monday against its signing in Prague. The US is seeking a similar agreement with Poland [AFP report], but that agreement has been delayed by disagreements over what other military aid might be involved. The International Herald Tribune has more. AP has additional coverage.

The Russian Foreign Ministry [official website], claiming the system would threaten Russia's national security, said afterwards [BBC report] in an official statement [text; automated English translation] that "If a US strategic anti-missile shield starts to be deployed near our borders, we will be forced to react not in a diplomatic fashion but with military-technical means." The US insists [Reuters report] that the system is designed to protect the region from attacks launched from the Middle East, and that it has offered to cooperate with Russia on the plan. Russia has long opposed the expansion of the missile defense system [JURIST news archive] into Eastern Europe, suspending its participation [JURIST report] in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) [text; backgrounder] in November 2007 because of the plans before conditionally agreeing to rejoin the treaty [JURIST report] in April.

[JURIST] The upper house of the Dutch parliament voted 50-15 Tuesday to approve the EU reform treaty [JURIST news archive], formally known as the Treaty of Lisbon [official website; PDF text]. Last month, Netherlands Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende [official profile] said that he would press on with ratification, even after Irish voters rejected the treaty [JURIST reports] in a referendum earlier that month. The Dutch parliament's lower house approved [European Voice report] the treaty by a vote of 111-39 in June. Xinhua has more. Dutch News has local coverage.

Other EU countries have delayed ratifying the treaty [JURIST report] until the full effect of the Irish referendum is known. The future of the pact is currently in doubt as it must be approved by all 27 EU states in order to take effect. EU leaders signed the reform treaty [JURIST report] last December, and 14 countries have ratified the document [JURIST archive] so far. In 2005, a draft European constitution [JURIST news archive] failed when voters in France and the Netherlands [JURIST reports] rejected the proposal in national referenda. EU leaders are expected to meet in Brussels next week to discuss how to move ahead in light of the Irish vote.

[JURIST] An en-banc panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] Wednesday released a ruling [PDF text] granting broad deference to the National Forest Service (NFS) [official website] when making decisions regarding the impact of logging on national forests. The ruling comes in a case brought by environmental groups Lands Council and the Wild West Institute [advocacy websites] to enjoin the NFS from instituting a proposed logging plan in Idaho Panhandle National Forest [official website]. The court Wednesday held that under the Administrative Procedures Act [statute text; provision text], it could only overturn NFS decisions on these matters of they were "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law," a standard that had not been met in this case:

In essence, Lands Council asks this court to act as a panel of scientists that instructs the Forest Service how to validate its hypotheses regarding wildlife viability, chooses among scientific studies in determining whether the Forest Service has complied with the underlying Forest Plan, and orders the agency to explain every possible scientific uncertainty... this is not a proper role for a federal appellate court. But Lands Council’s arguments illustrate how, in recent years, our environmental jurisprudence has, at times, shifted away from the appropriate standard of review and could be read to suggest that this court should play such a role... Today, we correct those errors.

[JURIST] The US Department of Health and Human Services [official website] Monday hosted a discussion with genetic scientists, advocates and direct-to-consumer (DTC) genome mapping companies Navigenics, DeCode Genetics, and 23andMe [corporate websites] to discuss regulatory concerns. DTC genetic testing allows members of the public to obtain genetic data about themselves, usually to look for potential health risks, but does not require consultation with a health care professional. Public Health Genomics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [official website] Director Muin Khoury said that the industry lacks effective regulation and worried that DTC genetic testing does not offer the insights into a person's health that customers may believe it does. Questions still surround the accuracy and usefulness of DTC testing, and some states want to impose legal limits on the industry. Last month, California warned DTC companies that they faced legal action [letter PDF; Genomeweb report] if they failed to comply with state laws requiring physician supervision of the process. New York has also issued similar warnings. Genomeweb has more.

In May, US President George W. Bush signed into law [remarks transcript] a bill aimed at preventing employers and health insurers from discriminating against people who have a genetic predisposition to disease. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) [HR 493 materials] had passed with overwhelming majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate [JURIST reports]. Under the measure, employers are barred from basing hiring and firing decisions on genetic risk or predisposition to disease, while health insurers would not be permitted to deny coverage based on genetic information.

[JURIST] Genocide suspects held at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) [official website] will now be able to receive conjugal visits, court officials said Saturday. Court spokesman Roland Amoussouga said that the new policy would bring the court's practices more in line with those of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website], which has allowed conjugal visits since 1993, and with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [text]. Detainees must abide by the court's rules of detention [text] for the visits, and failure to do so would lead to the revocation of the privilege [Hirondelle News Agency report]. Rwandan officials criticized the new policy, calling it a "mockery" of the justice system [Daily News report] and saying that it is an "excessive" privilege [New Times report] to grant to those suspected of war crimes. The African Press Agency has more.

In early June, the ICTR prosecutor asked the UN Security Council [official website] to extend the court's mandate [JURIST report] so that it could complete all war crimes trials. Hassan Bubacar Jallow [official profile] said in a report [PDF text] that the recent arrests of several Rwandan genocide suspects meant that the court would not have time to finish several first-instance cases until 2009. Pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1503 (2003) [PDF text], the court is to complete all trials by the end of the year, and to complete all of its work, including appellate review, by 2010.

[JURIST] An apparent assassination attempt [PCHR press release] against Palestinian Authority Attorney General Ahmed al-Moghani failed in the West Bank town of Ramallah Tuesday when a bomb placed in his car exploded as he stood several feet away. Al-Moghani was not injured in the blast. It is not yet clear who was responsible for the attack, but Palestinian security forces are investigating the explosion. Reuters has more.

Tension in the Palestinian territories has increased lately as competing Palestinian governments controlled by Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas [BBC backgrounders] in Gaza have struggled for ascendancy. In May, the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights (PICCR) [advocacy website] reported that it had received over 2,000 reports of human rights abuses by Palestinian factions in 2007, including illegal detentions and torture. In 2007, Amnesty International [advocacy website] criticized the two feuding Palestinian groups [JURIST report] for causing wide-scale violence involving civilians.

[JURIST] US President George W. Bush called on Congress Tuesday to reject amendments [WH fact sheet] to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [text; JURIST news archive] that would deny telecom companies retroactive immunity for participating in the NSA warrantless surveillance program [JURIST news archive]. In a letter [PDF text] sent to Senate Majority leader Harry Reid on Monday, Director of National Intelligence Jack McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey said that they would recommend that Bush veto the legislation if it included the Bingaman amendment [EFF backgrounder]:

Any amendment that would delay implementation of the liability protections in this manner is unacceptable. Providing prompt liability protection is critical to the national security. Accordingly, we, as well as the President's other senior advisors, will recommend that the President veto any bill that includes such an amendment.[sic]

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website] Tuesday ruled [PDF text] that the government can require convicts to receive injections of anti-psychotic medication as a condition of their supervised release. Philip Holman repeatedly failed to abide by a condition of his supervised release that required him to take oral anti-psychotic drugs. A federal court in Virginia ordered that Holman should instead receive injections, but Holman claimed that the injections violated his due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments [text], arguing they were not medically necessary and that less intrusive alternatives existed. The Fourth Circuit held:

The evidence establishing Holman’s dangerousness also establishes that the district court’s order was narrowly tailored to the circumstances of this case. As the district court noted, Holman became a danger to himself and others when he was off his medication, and injections of long-lasting antipsychotic drugs provide the only means of insuring that Holman takes his medication. The special condition of supervised release thus significantly furthers and is clearly necessary to further the government’s interests in protecting Holman and the public.

[JURIST] EU justice ministers agreed to a draft immigration and asylum proposal Tuesday during an informal meeting held ahead of the official Wednesday summit in Cannes, France. The draft policy is aimed at standardizing EU nations' approach to immigration and asylum, as set out in the work programme [PDF text] circulated by the French EU Presidency [official website] late last month. The programme includes streamlining legal procedures, stepping up efforts against illegal immigration, and promoting a closer partnership between migrants' countries of origin, transit countries, and countries of destination. The draft policy also seeks to strengthen EU border controls, improve the European asylum system, and provide for the removal of foreigners who remain in the EU illegally. AP has more. BBC News has additional coverage.

Last month, EU government leaders meeting in Brussels directed member states to draft tougher border security legislation [JURIST report] to curb the increasing problem of illegal immigration. Also in June, the European Parliament approved a new set of immigration rules [JURIST report] to help combat the increasing number of illegal immigrants in the EU. The rules allow EU states to detain illegal immigrants for up to 18 months to decrease flight risk while deportation is being processed, in addition to imposing a re-entry ban of up to five years on expelled immigrants who do not cooperate or are deemed a security threat. The plan also requires that immigrants be given access to free legal advice, and that minors and families with children only be detained as a last resort.

[JURIST] Thailand's Constitutional Court [official website, in Thai] ruled 8-1 Tuesday that a June cabinet communique supporting the establishment of a World Heritage site on the countries' shared border was unconstitutional [PDF press release, in Thai]. In June, Thai Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama signed the Thai-Cambodian Joint Communique, indicating Thai support for the Cambodian bid to have the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple [Telegraph backgrounder] designated a World Heritage site. The court found that section 190 of the Thai constitution [PDF text] forbade such a move without parliamentary approval:

A treaty that provides for a change in the Thai territories, the extraterritorial areas in which the Kingdom has a sovereign right, or any jurisdictional area the Kingdom has acquired through treaty or through international law, or requires the enactment of an Act for its implementation, or has extensive impacts on the country's economic and social stability, or has significant bindings on trade, investment, or national budget, must be approved by the National Assembly.

[JURIST] A US group co-chaired by former Secretaries of State James Baker and Warren Christopher [group's leadership profiles] released a report [PDF text; NYT op-ed] Tuesday calling for a new law requiring the president to consult with Congress before going to war. Called the National War Powers Commission [official website], the group said the 1973 War Powers Resolution [LII materials] was intended to serve this purpose, but that it has been ignored and may actually be unconstitutional. They called their proposed replacement for the law the "War Powers Consultation Act of 2009," and said that it would require the president to engage in "meaningful consultation" with Congress before ordering military operations that are planned to last more than a week. Underlining the importance of congressional input on these decisions, the Commission wrote:

When congressional consultation and support are obtained during times of war, our country can most effectively execute a unified response to hostilities. That is particularly important today, with the face of war changing and with non-state actors being one of the greatest threats to national security. The more the President and Congress work together to confront these threats, the more likely it is that the country can avoid political and constitutional controversies and also devise the best strategies for defending against those threats.

[JURIST] A Moscow court Monday rejected an attempt by relatives of Polish victims of the 1940 Katyn massacre [CNN backgrounder; Poland backgrounder] to renew investigations into the killings. The government of Mikhail Gorbachev [Guardian profile] admitted in 1990 that Josef Stalin had personally ordered [documents, in Russian] the secret police to carry out the killings. Russia had previously blamed the Nazis for the incident, in which more than 20,000 Polish Army reservists, academics and politicians were killed in the Katyn Forest in present-day Belarus, as well as other locations. The Moscow City Court's Monday ruling upheld an earlier lower court ruling [RIA Novosti report] denying the appeal. A lawyer for the family members said they will appeal to the district military court. Reuters has more.

The Polish Institute of National Remembrance [official website] has long sought to convince the Russian government to apply its law on the "rehabilitation of victims of political repressions" to the Katyn victims, but suits have so far been unsuccessful. Russia's own 10-year investigation of the massacre ended in 2004 when the government closed its classified files and said the crime's statute of limitations had expired. In 2006, the families filed a complaint [JURIST report] with the European Court of Human Rights [official website], asking it to classify the incident as genocide and compel the Russian government to disclose its information.

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website; JURIST news archive] released a report [HRW materials; press release] Tuesday calling on the Saudi government to institute new legal protections for the country's estimated 1.5 million domestic workers. The group said that migrant domestic workers have fewer protections than those in other occupations, and are specifically excluded from the country's 2005 Labor Law [statute text]. HRW added that migrant workers are particularly vulnerable to abuse because their visas are tied to their employer, and that the workers, mostly Asian women, are subject to much of the sexual discrimination in the country [JURIST report]. The group said that not all workers were abused but that too many faced harsh conditions:

While many domestic workers enjoy decent work conditions, others endure a range of abuses including non-payment of salaries, forced confinement, food deprivation, excessive workload, and instances of severe psychological, physical, and sexual abuse. Human Rights Watch documented dozens of cases where the combination of these conditions amounted to forced labor, trafficking, or slavery-like conditions.

[JURIST] Former Thailand prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] went on trial for corruption Tuesday in the Thai Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions [Thai judiciary backgrounder]. In March, Thaksin pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] to the charges stemming from a 2003 land purchase his wife, Pojamarn, made from a government-directed institution despite a ban on officials making business deals with government agencies.  The court will determine whether Thaksin abused the authority of his office to influence the deal. The judgment in the trial, which is expected to last about two months, cannot be appealed, and Thaksin could be sentenced to up to 13 years in prison if found guilty. AFP has more. TNA has local coverage.

On Monday, members of the People's Alliance for Democracy protested [JURIST report] delays in various corruption trials Thaksin is facing, and the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) [official website] said that it may bring more charges against Thaksin without waiting for Office of the Attorney General [official website, in Thai] to file additional indictments. In June, the Committee recommend that two new charges be brought [AP report] against Thaksin, one for using his position to secure a $127 million loan to benefit a company owned by his family, and another for corruption related to the purchase of about $43 million worth of rubber trees. In February, Thaksin returned to Thailand from self-imposed exile to face corruption charges laid against him after he was ousted in a military coup [JURIST reports] in September 2006.