[JURIST] Eight Somalis were charged in a Kenyan court [Kenya judiciary website] for piracy on Wednesday after being turned over to Kenyan officials by the British Royal Navy [official website]. The suspected pirates were captured by the HMS Cumberland [official website] while attempting to use a hijacked Yemeni fishing boat to attack a Danish vessel on November 11 and then handed over [press release] to Kenyan police Tuesday. This marks the second time suspected Somali pirates captured by a third party have been prosecuted in Kenyan courts. In January 2006, the US Navy [official website] captured 10 Somali men 200 miles off the coast of Somalia and turned them over to Kenyan courts in Mombasa for prosecution [press release]. In November 2006, each of the 10 men were sentenced to seven years in prison. AFP has more. KBC News has local coverage.

In June, the UN Security Council [official website] unanimously approved Resolution 1838 [text, PDF; press release], condemning all acts of piracy and armed robbery off the coast of Somalia, and calling on states to "deploy naval vessels and military aircraft to actively fight piracy on the high seas off the coast of Somalia." The resolution fills a gap in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) [text, PDF; materials], which defines piracy as "all illegal acts of violence or detention ... committed for private ends on the high seas," and does not apply to such action in the territorial waters of states. Although maritime piracy is increasingly widespread, Somalia's coast has been ranked as the most dangerous in the world [BBC report] due to a surge in attacks on ships carrying traded goods or humanitarian aid [NPR report]. Somalia has not had an effective government for 17 years. It was recently ranked as one of the world's most corrupt countries [JURIST report] and its transitional government has only a tenuous hold over the country's capital. In October 2007 the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) [advocacy website], which tracks incidents of maritime piracy worldwide [IMP materials], reported [press release] that incidents of piracy and armed attacks against ships off the Somalian and Nigerian coasts have risen 14% from 2006.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] has vacated [order, PDF] a district court judge's contempt order [text, PDF; JURIST report] against former USA Today reporter Toni Locy [faculty profile] in connection with her refusal to disclose sources for articles she wrote about the 2001 anthrax attacks [GWU backgrounder]. The citation, issued by US District Judge Reggie Walton [official profile], required Locy personally to pay a fine of up to $5,000 a day for not yielding information sought by former US Army germ-warfare researcher Dr. Steven Hatfill [Washington Post profile] in support of his privacy lawsuit [complaint, PDF; JURIST report] against the US Department of Justice (DOJ). In a ruling handed down Monday, the three-judge appeals panel nonetheless dismissed Locy's actual appeal against the order:

This appeal raised close questions under Fed. R. Evid. 501 and the First Amendment, including whether the appellant had a defense, which required analysis of the appellee’s efforts to obtain the information from alternate sources and need for disclosure of the appellant’s sources, as compared to the appellant’s interest in concealing her sources in order to protect the workings of the press. Because the underlying case has been settled, however, there is no longer a “pending trial in which” the appellee’s request for
disclosure “can be used.”

[JURIST] A panel of UN experts on Wednesday urged [press release] authorities in Myanmar [JURIST archive; BBC backgrounder] to retry political and religious prisoners. The group, including Special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Tomas Ojea Quintana [official website], called for fair and open trials [Reuters report] for dozens of activists convicted [JURIST report] in judicial proceedings inside Yangyon's Insein Prison [BBC backgrounder]. The panel considered such a process to be part of general reforms necessary for moving toward multi-party democratic government, including:

a comprehensive review of national legislation to ensure its compliance with international human rights standards, the release of political prisoners of conscience, and reform of the armed forces and the judicial system.

[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Public Health Officer Heiko Hering said Wednesday that the large-scale anti-malaria effort recently launched by the United Nations Foundation [official websites] is part of fulfilling the service obligations of the Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees [text, PDF]. Hering made the comment during a conference call promoting the mission of Nothing But Nets [charity website], a grassroots campaign providing mosquito nets to African refugees. Article 23 of the Convention mandates public relief, stating:

The Contracting States shall accord to refugees lawfully staying in their territory the same treatment with respect to public relief and assistance as is accorded to their nationals.

[JURIST] Navy defense attorney Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier was given rare access [Miami Herald report] on Wednesday to Camp Seven [Miami Herald backgrounder], a special Guantanamo camp for alleged al Qaeda members classified as "high-value detainees" at the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] military prison. Lachelier is a defense lawyer for Ramzi Binalshibh [BBC profile], who has been charged [text, PDF] with murder and war crimes for his alleged role in the 9/11 attacks [JURIST news archive]. She made the visit after convincing [JURIST report] US military judge Col. Ralph Kohlmann [JURIST news archive] that she needed to assess conditions in the camp to determine if they are worsening Binalshibh's mental illnesses, in order to argue whether he is competent to stand trial. Kohlmann, however denied requests that a defense psychologist also be allowed into the camp. Binalshibh, classified as an enemy combatant for his role in the attacks, faces the death penalty if convicted.

Prisoners in Camp Seven are isolated from other prisoners to prevent violence against those who have provided information to interrogators, and the exact location of the camp has been kept secret to prevent a terrorist attack. The existence of the camp was not known until last December when it was mentioned [New York Times report] in court papers [JURIST report] filed by lawyers for Majid Khan [GlobalSecurity profile], the first "high-value" Guantanamo Bay detainee to be allowed to meet privately with legal counsel.

[JURIST] A judge for the Moscow District Military Court on Wednesday ordered that the trial of three men accused in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya [BBC obituary] be closed to the public. This essentially reversed [RIA Novosti report] his Monday decision [JURIST report] to allow an open trial. Also on Wednesday, all of the accused pleaded not guilty [RIA Novosti report] to the charges. The decision to reverse Monday's ruling came after members of the jury refused to enter the court room citing fear of being negatively targeted with all the media attention generated by the case.

Sergey Khadzhikurbanov and brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, all from Chechnya, were arrested [JURIST report] in August 2007. The main suspect, Rustam Makhmudov, also from Chechnya, has yet to be captured, but Russian authorities have said he is hiding in Western Europe. Closed preliminary hearings in the case began [JURIST report] last month. Politkovskaya, a reporter for the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta [official website], was murdered [JURIST report] after returning to her Moscow apartment building in October 2006.

[JURIST] Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] called Tuesday for an international investigation into the deaths of civilians during the August 2008 conflict [BBC backgrounder] between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia [JURIST news archive]. A new AI report [text, PDF; AI press release] entitled "Civilians in the Line of Fire: the Georgia-Russia Conflict" faulted both Russia and Georgia, as well as South Ossetian forces, for the deaths of civilians. The report outlined possible human rights violations during the conflict, including attacks on civilians and civilian targets by both sides, the use of land mines and cluster bombs [JURIST news archive], the treatment of prisoners of war and civilian detainees, and the wide-spread displacement of civilians during and after the fighting. Amnesty observed:

The fact that information documented by Amnesty International and others indicates that serious violations of international humanitarian law have been committed by Georgian and Russian forces, and by groups loyal to South Ossetia, demands investigation and remedial action. Georgia and Russia are conducting investigations into alleged violations of international humanitarian law. Amnesty International is calling for these investigations to cover all illegal acts and omissions and to be conducted promptly, independently, impartially and thoroughly, in accordance with international standards for such investigations. The results of these investigations must be made public, and perpetrators of serious violations of international humanitarian law be brought to justice. Amnesty International further calls upon the South Ossetian authorities to ensure the independent, impartial and transparent investigation of alleged violations of international humanitarian law perpetrated by their armed forces.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Nepal [official website] has directed the country's government to end sexual orientation-based discrimination and to extend equal rights to gender minorities, including same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive]. The order, made Monday, came in a lawsuit brought by several gay rights groups and follows a December 2007 ruling [BBC report] recognizing homosexuals as citizens under the classification "third sex." The latest decision requires that all gender minorities must be defined as "natural persons" under the law [UK Gay News report] and directs the Nepalese government to form a committee to draft a same-sex partnership and marriage act based on legislation in other countries. Sunil Babu Pant, Nepal's first openly gay Member of Parliament [NYT report] and an outspoken proponent of gay rights [Express India report], called the ruling a "landmark decision." The Hindustan Times has more.

Same-sex marriage is recognized in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, and Norway. In October, the Portuguese parliament voted overwhelmingly against proposals to legalize same-sex marriage [JURIST report]. In the US, same-sex marriages are now permitted in Massachusetts and Connecticut [JURIST report]. Earlier this month, same-sex marriage bans passed [JURIST report] in California, Arizona, and Florida, leading to nationwide demonstrations [New York Times report; JURIST report] and a call from California's Attorney General [JURIST report] for the California Supreme Court to examine challenges to the ban's legality.

[JURIST] The International Court of Justice (ICJ) [official website] on Tuesday ruled [opinion, PDF; press release, PDF] that it has jurisdiction to hear a case [ICJ materials] brought by Croatia [JURIST news archive] accusing Serbia [JURIST news archive] of genocide during the Croatian War from 1991-1995. Croatia claimed in its application that Serbia had engaged in "a form of genocide which resulted in large numbers of Croatian citizens being displaced, killed, tortured, or illegally detained as well as extensive property destruction" throughout the Croatian war, during which an estimated 20,000 people were killed. Serbia objected to Croatia's claim on the grounds that when Croatia filed the application in 1999, Serbia - then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) - was neither a UN member nor a party to Article IX of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 [text], the treaty upon which ICJ jurisdiction was based.

Rejecting those arguments, the ICJ noted a 1992 declaration made by the Permanent Mission of Yugoslavia to the UN, promising that the FRY would "continue to fulfill all the rights conferred to, and obligations assumed by, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in international relations, including its membership in all international organizations and participation in international treaties ratified or acceded to by Yugoslavia." The court found that Serbia's conduct was consistent with that declaration, and postponed for trial on the merits the consideration of whether Serbia could be subject to claims based on events that occurred before Serbian statehood was established in April 1992. The decision is binding and may not be appealed. Trial is not expected to begin before 2010, though sources speculate that the countries may first reach a settlement. Deutsche Welle has more; Reuters has additional coverage.

Serbia's foreign minister announced Wednesday that Serbia will soon bring a countersuit [AP report] in the ICJ for war crimes allegedly committed against Serbs in Croatia during the 1995 Operation Storm [BBC report], during which more than 250,000 ethnic Serbs were displaced from Croatia. Serbia was previously sued in the ICJ on genocide charges by Bosnia. In 2007, the court found that although the Serbian government was not directly responsible for genocide [JURIST report] during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, the country failed to meet its obligations to prevent genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention.

[JURIST] A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit [official website] on Tuesday upheld [opinion, PDF] a New Hampshire law that prohibits the gathering of data from prescription drug records to target pharmaceutical sales to doctors. The Prescription Information Law [text] was enacted in June 2006 and was aimed at limiting health care costs by reducing the number of brand-name prescriptions written by doctors. The law prohibited a technique used by pharmaceutical companies in which the prescription histories of doctors in the state are used to create personalized sales pitches for brand-name drugs. The New Hampshire General Court [official website], the state's legislature, enacted the law restricting access to prescribing histories based on the belief that the practice improperly induced doctors to prescribe costly brand-name drugs in place of equally-effective but less-expensive generic medications. The First Circuit held {AP report; NYT report] Tuesday that the law did not restrict free speech, since it permissibly regulated only the conduct of data mining companies, not their speech:

The challenged portions of the statute principally regulate conduct, and to the extent that the challenged portions impinge at all upon speech, that speech is of scant societal value. We say that the challenged elements of the Prescription Information Law principally regulate conduct because those provisions serve only to restrict the ability of data miners to aggregate, compile, and transfer information destined for narrowly defined commercial ends. In our view, this is a restriction on the conduct, not the speech, of the data miners. [citation omitted] In other words, this is a situation in which information itself has become a commodity. The plaintiffs, who are in the business of harvesting, refining, and selling this commodity, ask us in essence to rule that because their product is information instead of, say, beef jerky, any regulation constitutes a restriction of speech. We think that such an interpretation stretches the fabric of the First Amendment beyond any rational measure.

[JURIST] Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis [official profile] on Tuesday called [statement text; AKI report] on officials to end discrimination against Europe's Roma minority [JURIST news archive]. Davis' comments came in response to a Monday confrontation [BBC report] between Czech police and far-right protesters attempting to attack a Roma suburb near the town of Litvinov. The head of the European human rights organization said:

I congratulate the Czech authorities on their determination in stopping the violence and also express my solidarity with the policemen who were wounded by the mob. At the same time we must recognise that this incident took place against the background of increasing intolerance and violence against Roma people in Europe. All Governments across Europe also need to look urgently at the situation of the Roma communities in their countries and act decisively to protect them against discrimination, intolerance and violence. [sic]