[JURIST] Lawyers blocked streets in the major cities of Pakistan [JURIST news archive] on Thursday to demand the reappointment of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry [JURIST news archive] and other judges removed last year [JURIST report] by former President Pervez Musharraf [JURIST news archive]. Aitzaz Ahsan [profile], president of Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association, vowed [Reuters report] that the blockades would continue until Chaudhry is reinstated. The protests follow Wednesday's reappointment of eight ousted judges [JURIST report] to the Sindh High Court [official website] in Karachi - a development that leaders of the nationwide lawyers' movement [AHRC backgrounder; PBS report] described as a "conspiracy" to undermine support for total reinstatement. AFP has more.

Pakistan's coalition government dissolved [JURIST report] Monday after former prime minister Nawaz Sharif [party profile; JURIST news archive] withdrew his Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) party [party website] over the failure to reach an agreement with the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) [party website] that would reinstate the ousted judges. Although PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari [CV; JURIST news archive] has asked Sharif to return to the coalition, he has refused [party press release; Times of India report], saying, "We prefer national interest at the cost of personal interest."

[JURIST] Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] Wednesday threatened to ignore any arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court [official website; JURIST news archive]. Bashir, speaking to legislators Wednesday in semi-autonomous southern Sudan, said he would not "deal with or respond to" the ICC, according to AFP. Bashir's speech rallied support against the ICC and predicted that ICC charges against him would harm the country's oil-based economy. AFP has more.

In July, ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile] applied for a warrant to arrest Bashir [JURIST report] on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for atrocities committed in the country's Darfur region [JURIST news archive]. Moreno-Ocampo this month criticized Sudan's own investigation [JURIST report] of war crimes in Darfur, calling it "part of the cover-up." Sudan's justice minister recently appointed several prosecutors to investigate and try war crimes suspects in internationally monitored courts [JURIST reports].

In another development in Sudan [JURIST news archive] Wednesday, security forces reportedly seized copies [AFP report] of the English-language Sudan Tribune [media website] for the 17th time this month. The editor of the Tribune said Thursday that government censors this week warned the newspaper it would be closed by Sept. 1 if it fails to replace its editorial board, among other conditions. In a report on its website Thursday, the newspaper said the government had barred publication of an article quoting Sudan's foreign minister as criticizing security forces for the deaths of 30 people during the raid of a Darfur refugee camp. According to the Tribune report, newspaper censorship has increased since the ICC indicted Bashir.

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST news archive] has suspended the war crimes trial of Serb nationalist leader Vojislav Seselj [BBC profile; ICTY case materials, PDF] pending an appellate ruling on whether the defendant may represent himself. In a press briefing [text] Wednesday, the court announced that hearings had been adjourned until the court's Appeals Chamber "rules on the Prosecution’s appeal for the proceedings to be stayed until the Trial Chamber itself has ruled on its Motion challenging the accused's self-representation." Prosecutor Serge Brammertz [official profile] last month presented a motion asking the court to appoint counsel for Seslj, arguing that his self-representation was obstructing proceedings. The court on Wednesday further entered an order [PDF text] giving Seselj one month to respond to the prosecution's motion to impose counsel. AFP has more.

The ICTY had previously stripped Seselj of his right to defend himself [JURIST report] after he failed to appear in court, despite an earlier appeals court ruling that he could represent himself [JURIST report] provided he not engage in courtroom antics that "substantially obstruct the proper and expeditious proceedings in his case." The Appeals Chamber later ruled he could represent himself. The ICTY has charged Seselj [indictment, PDF; pre-trial brief, PDF] with three counts of crimes against humanity and six counts of war crimes. When the trial began last year, the prosecution made an opening statement [JURIST report] accusing Seselj of inciting atrocities [JURIST report] through hateful speeches he made during the Balkan Wars. He is the founder of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party [party website, in Serbian].

[JURIST] The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Wednesday submitted requests to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (UNCLCS) [official websites] to claim exclusive harvesting rights to an area of the seabed surrounding Ascension Island, a British possession in the remote South Atlantic technically part of St Helena, the British overseas territory that where Napoleon spent his last years in exile from 1815-21. Under the Law of the Sea Treaty [text], a country has exclusive harvesting rights to a zone extending 200 nautical miles from its shore, but when a continental shelf extends farther a nation may claim up to 350 miles from the baseline or 100 miles from the 2,500 meter depth. According to FCO officers Wednesday, the United Kingdom also plans to submit similar territorial claims for seabeds surrounding the Hatton-Rockall area west of Scotland, as well as the Falkland Islands, also in the southern Atlantic. Denmark and Iceland currently have pending claims to the Hatton-Rockall area, as do Argentina and Chile to the Falkland Islands. BBC News has more.

Questions about Arctic sea oil and gas rights have become more pressing lately, as global warming estimates predict that previously unattainable ice-locked resources will be within reach by mid-century. New technologies also make previously unattainable under-seabed minerals extractable. In May, the five states bordering the Arctic met to discuss allocation of harvesting rights [JURIST report] to minerals under Arctic seabeds. Environmental organizations have criticized efforts to expand oil drilling [WWF report] into the Arctic Sea, calling for increased research into energy conservation and renewable resources instead. Critics have also said that offshore development will require massive amounts of infrastructure that could impact local wildlife.

[JURIST] A Bosnian immigrant to Norway accused of mistreating Bosnian Serbs imprisoned during the 1992-95 Bosnian war [timeline] went on trial Wednesday in Oslo, marking the start of the first war crimes trial to take place in Norway since World War II. Norwegian citizen Mirsad Repak pleaded not guilty to war crimes, crimes against humanity, rape and torture of Serbian prisoners detained in the Dretelj detention camp in 1992. According to Repak, a former member of the Croatian Defence Forces, he was following orders from superiors. If convicted, Repak could get up to 20 years in prison. BBC News has more. AFP has additional coverage.

The government of Norway [JURIST news archive] passed legislation [JURIST report] in March to expand prosecutable criminal activity to include terrorism, genocide, and war crimes. Before the law was enacted, Norwegian law did not include such crimes and any criminals suspected of acts falling under those categories were handed over to international war crimes tribunals. Repak's defense argues that the newly passed legislation cannot be applied retroactively to any crimes committed in 1992, and that the laws are thus unconstitutional. According to the government, the law was passed with a specific clause permitting application of the law to war crimes committed in the past.

[JURIST] The US Justice Department (DOJ) [official website] has asked federal judges in Florida and Washington, DC, to give lenient sentences to former lobbyist Jack Abramoff [JURIST news archive], who has cooperated in the prosecution of several legislative and executive branch officials. Since 2006, Abramoff has been serving a six-year prison term [JURIST report] on fraud and conspiracy charges filed in Florida; next week, he is scheduled to be sentenced in Washington to as much as 11 years for tax evasion, fraud and conspiracy. The DOJ recommended Wednesday that the Florida sentence be reduced to four years and that the Washington court impose a sentence of five years. If the judges follow those recommendations, Abramoff would be released in late 2011. His sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 4 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website]. AP has more. Politico has additional coverage. The Washington Post has local coverage.

The DOJ said Abramoff's cooperation has helped secure the convictions of several former executive and legislative officials, including Robert Coughlin II, deputy chief of staff in the DOJ Criminal Division; Deputy US Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles; US Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH); David Safavian, former chief of staff of the US General Services Administration [JURIST reports]; and Tony Rudy, deputy chief of staff and press secretary to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX). Money-laundering and conspiracy charges [indictment text] against DeLay remain pending. Last week, a Texas appellate court allowed money-laundering indictments to stand [JURIST report] against two alleged co-conspirators of DeLay.

[JURIST] Lebanon [JURIST news archive] on Wednesday charged Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi [official website; JURIST news archive] and six other officials with the 1978 disappearance of a prominent Lebanese cleric and issued warrants for their arrests. In Beirut, investigating magistrate Samih al-Haj charged Gaddafi with inciting the abduction of Imam Mussa Sadr [profile], who had traveled to Tripoli to meet Libyan officials. Libya [JURIST news archive] has denied involvement in the disappearance, claiming that Sadr left the country for Italy. The charges carry sentences ranging from seven years' imprisonment to the death penalty. AFP has more.

The arrest warrant was issued after Gaddafi failed to acknowledge a summons [PressTV report] to appear at the Lebanese Ministry of Justice [official website, in Arabic] for a court hearing earlier this year. The case had been closed until 2004, when Lebanon reopened it at the urging of the Hezbollah movement [party website; CFR backgrounder] and Sadr's relatives.