[JURIST] Top UN officials Friday condemned Israel, the Palestinians and Lebanese Hezbollah militants for intentionally inflicting civilian casualties on one another contrary to international humanitarian law as violence continued to escalate [ABC report] in the Middle East, with Israel stepping up military action against Lebanese targets and Hezbollah militants attacking Haifa with rockets. Fighting has intensified in recent days as Israel presses for the return of a soldier captured by Palestinians in late June and two others seized by Hezbollah militants earlier this week. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said through a spokesman [text] in Geneva that

while Israel has legitimate security concerns, international humanitarian law requires that parties to a conflict refrain from attacks directed against civilian objects. In particular, they have an obligation to exercise precaution and to respect the proportionality principle in all military operations so as to prevent unnecessary suffering among the civilian population. The prohibition on targeting civilians is also being violated by Hezbollah.

The law is simple. Civilians must be shielded. Civilians are protected persons. Civilian infrastructure is protected...If sealing off borders, if sealing off harbors, if bombing airports first and foremost means that innocent third parties cannot receive goods, cannot travel, cannot get to health facilities, cannot get their daily needs met ... Israel`s blockade is obviously wrong.... It is in violation of international law, and it is also in violation of common sense...You are supposed to do something to the armed group. You are not supposed to hurt the children of people who have nothing to do with this.

I condemn all actions which target civilians, or which unduly endanger them due to their disproportionate or indiscriminate character. I would like to remind the parties that under the law of armed conflict, attacks must not be directed against civilian objects. In particular, they have an obligation to exercise precaution and to respect the proportionality principle in all military operations so as to prevent unnecessary suffering among the civilian population. I call on all parties to adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law and international agreements.

[JURIST] The Tennessee Supreme Court [official website] on Friday dismissed [ruling, PDF] a challenge [press release] brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [official website] to a proposed constitutional amendment [PDF] that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman. The Court held that the ACLU lacked standing to bring the challenge on behalf of three state representatives, ACLU members, and a gay and lesbian rights advocacy group.

The ACLU lawsuit alleged that advocates of the same-sex marriage ban failed to abide by notification procedures required by Article 9, Section 3 of the Tennessee Constitution [PDF text]. As the Tennessee House and Senate have approved the amendment, it becomes law if it wins the support of a majority of voters during the upcoming November elections. AP has more.

[JURIST] A legal advisor to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko [official website; JURIST news archive] said Friday that the plan of Yushchenko's political rival and former Ukrainian prime minister Viktor Yanukovych [BBC profile], to directly nominate a candidate to serve as prime minister could constitute an illegal seizure of power. Ukraine is in the midst of a political crisis as no government has been formed since parliamentary elections were held in March. Yanukovych's Party of the Regions [party website] formed a coalition last week with the Socialist and Communist parties, giving them a majority of seats in parliament, but Yushchenko has said that the coalition was illegally formed [press release], insisting that MPs from the Socialist parties did not comply [UNIAN report] with Article 83 of the Ukrainian Constitution [text] and parliamentary procedure rules when withdrawing from the former coalition and joining Yanukovych. Yushchenko has accordingly refused to appoint Yanukovych [BBC report], who narrowly lost the presidential election to Yushchenko in 2004, as prime minister. Members of Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada [official website], on Friday urged Yushchenko to either dissolve parliament and call new elections or find a way to work with the new coalition [AP report].

Yushchenko was sworn in as Ukraine's president [JURIST report] in January 2005 on the wings of the populist "Orange Revolution" [BBC timeline]. Yushchenko won a re-vote against Yanukovych after the results of an initial presidential poll favoring Yanukovych were thrown out by the country's Supreme Court following fraud allegations. In the current political upheaval, the parliament voted to dissolve the government [JURIST report] in January, prompting Yushchenko to criticize constitutional changes that have limited his authority and expanded parliamentary powers and to call for a new constitution [JURIST reports]. RIA Novosti has more.

[JURIST] Belgrade prosecutors filed criminal charges against ten Serbs on Friday, accusing them of hiding indicted war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic [ICTY case backgrounder; JURIST news archive] from authorities, according to Belgrade radio station B92 [media website]. The charges say the accused aided Mladic with the knowledge that he is wanted [Interpol warrant] for trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website].

US and British agents have joined the manhunt for Mladic [JURIST report], who allegedly organized the July 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica [JURIST news archive], Bosnia. Though the EU in May suspended talks [JURIST report] with Serbia over possible accession [EU materials] over its failure to hand over Mladic, EU diplomats suggested Thursday that talks may continue without his capture [JURIST report]. UPI has more. B92 has local coverage in Serbian.

7:10 PM ET - A prosecutor quoted by Serbian news agency Beta said Friday that nine Serbs had been charged with knowingly aiding Mladic. AP has more.

[JURIST] Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) [official website] told reporters Friday that he anticipates easy passage of a bill [HR 9 summary; text, PDF] renewing expiring sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) [text; DOJ backgrounder] when it comes before the full Senate. Frist said the Senate will vote on the bill either by the end of June or after the month-long August break.

The House of Representatives on Thursday passed the renewal bill [JURIST report] 390-33. In June, Southern lawmakers unexpectedly balked [JURIST report] at two key provisions of the legislation - one requiring nine mostly Southern states with a history of race-based voter discrimination to seek DOJ approval before changing voting laws, and one requiring bilingual ballots in certain areas - that they characterized as unnecessary federal oversight. The objections were eventually reflected in proposed amendments to the House legislation that failed before the final floor vote Thursday. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Accusations against Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees made in declassified documents contain basic factual errors and easily-refuted claims, the Boston Globe reported Friday. After reviewing declassified records, Globe journalists uncovered a number of simple mistakes that they said raised "questions about whether the US military has thoroughly investigated its cases against the roughly 400 inmates." Lawyers defending detainees have said that false accusations strengthen the need for new judicial procedures at the prison in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [text], in which the court ruled last month that military commissions as initially constituted lack proper legal authorization [JURIST report]. Prior to the Hamdan decision, ten Guantanamo detainees awaited military trials.

Both the House and Senate Armed Services Committee have hosted hearings this week on the future status of military trials for detainees. House Republicans pushed for legislation authorizing military commissions on Wednesday, while military lawyers pressed the Senate [JURIST reports] Thursday for an approach more along the lines of court-martial governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice [text]. Also on Thursday, Sen. John Warner (R-VA) [official website] said that legislation authorizing military commissions for detainees is "imperative" by the end of the year [JURIST report]. The Boston Globe has more.

[JURIST] Indian officials have named three suspects in Tuesday's Mumbai train bombings [BBC report] that killed some 180 people [Mumbai Police casualty list] in seven different coordinated blasts after authorities detained 350 people for questioning [JURIST report] Thursday. The suspects - Sayyad Zabiuddin and Zulfeqar Fayyaz named Thursday and a third man known only as Rahil [Hindu report] - were disclosed as a man claiming to represent al Qaeda called Indian investigators and said al Qaeda had set up a wing in Kashmir, on the border of India and Pakistan. Also on Friday, Nepal police arrested two Pakistanis in connection with the theft of RDX explosives in 2001, and will be investigated in connection with the Mumbai bombs. Officials believe that the group most likely to have carried out Tuesday's bombings is Lashkar-e-Tayyaba [Wikipedia backgrounder], a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group.

Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna on Thursday demanded that Pakistan break up all existing terrorist networks in the country but stopped short of blaming Pakistan, amid speculation that Kashmiri militants [BBC backgrounder] played a role in the series of eight bombs. Pakistan, however, insists that it only offers the Islamabad funded militants diplomatic support and denied supporting the attacks. CBS/AP has more.

[JURIST] Chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte [official profile] was unceremoniously cut off at a Friday hearing for seven Bosnian Serbs indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] in connection with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre when she began a speech memorializing the massacre's 11th anniversary. Defense counsel objected to the speech, calling it "emotive," and despite del Ponte's declaration that she was "stupefied" and that it was usual for her to make a statement at the beginning of a trial, the judge ruled she should wait for opening arguments in the case, now scheduled for August 21.

The Srebrenica massacre [BBC backgrounder], where Bosnian Serbs killed more than 8,000 Muslims over a five-day period in July of 1995, remains the only incident the ICTY has ruled a genocide. All seven defendants face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, while only five are charged with genocide. The two alleged organizers of the Srebrenica massacre, Ratko Mladic [ICTY backgrounder; JURIST news archive] and Radovan Karadzic [ICTY case backgrounder; BBC profile], have not been captured. US and British agents are now assisting the Mladic manhunt [JURIST report].

ICTY case materials for the defendants - Ljubisa Beara, Ljubomir Borovcanin, Vinko Pandurevic, Drago Nikolic, Vujadin Popovic, Radivoje Miletic and Milan Gvero - can be found here. AFP has more.

[JURIST] AP is reporting that a federal appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling that struck down Nebraska's ban on same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive]. A federal judge struck down the ban [JURIST report] last May, ruling that it interferes with the rights of gay couples and also with those of foster parents, adopted children and people in many other living circumstances.

12:09 PM ET - The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit [official website] restored the ban on same-sex marriage, which was approved by Nebraska voters in 2000 as a state constitutional amendment, later codified in Section 29 of the Nebraska Constitution [text]. On appeal [JURIST report] from the state attorney general, the Eighth Circuit ruled [opinion, PDF]:

Appellees' attempt to isolate § 29 from laws prohibiting same-sex marriage because it is a state constitutional amendment fails. If there is no constitutional right to same-sex marriage, that is, if a statutory prohibition satisfies rational-basis review, then § 29 likewise survives rational-basis review. We hold that § 29 and other laws limiting the state-recognized institution of marriage to heterosexual couples are rationally related to legitimate state interests and therefore do not violate the Constitution of the United States.

[JURIST] Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin [official profile] said Thursday that the United Nations does not have the authority to compel Serbia on the status of Kosovo, and that the two parties need to reach a negotiated agreement on the territory. Churkin reportedly told the UN Security Council [official website] that he does not think the "international community has legal, political or moral ground to force Serbia into a solution on the issue," during a closed meeting of the Security Council. Serbia insists that Kosovo is still legally part of Serbia [BBC report] under the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 [text, PDF], but leaders of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority see independence as their only legitimate option [BBC report].

The United Nations has governed Kosovo since North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) [official website] forces drove the Serbian military out of Kosovo in 1999 [Wikipedia backgrounder]. UN-sponsored talks over a Kosovo solution including representatives from US, Russia, UK, France, Germany and Italy began in February [IHT report]. The talks have stalled at various junctures, but UN representatives hope they will conclude successfully by the end of the year. Council diplomats have said that an imposed solution may be necessary if the two sides cannot negotiate their own deal. Reuters has more. B92 has local coverage.

[JURIST] Mexican leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador [Wikipedia profile], who officially lost the July 2 presidential election [JURIST report] by .6 percent of the vote, on Thursday presented new evidence for his claims of extensive fraud, showing reporters television ads by several consumer product companies allegedly containing subliminal messages supporting the campaign of election winner Felipe Calderon [Wikipedia profile], and accusing election officials - even some of his own poll workers - of manipulating vote counts. AP has more.

On Monday, Obrador filed 225 charges of election fraud [JURIST report] with Mexico's Federal Election Tribunal (TRIFE) [official website] in a bid to force a manual recount of the votes. Though Obrador did not move for the results to be voided, the election court has the authority to annul the elections. The Federal Electoral Institute [official website, in Spanish] last week validated Calderon's victory, and TRIFE has until September 6 to name the election winner.

[JURIST] US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts [OYEZ profile] on Thursday expressed skepticism at the idea of allowing television cameras into Supreme Court proceedings, saying that the justices are concerned that cameras could have an "adverse impact" on the Court's functioning. Roberts reminded advocates of televised Supreme Court sessions that the purpose of oral arguments is to educate the justices on the facts of the dispute before them, not to educate the public on how the Court works. Roberts gave his first public comments on televised oral arguments since his confirmation hearings last September during a question-and-answer session at the annual conference [PDF press release] of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals [official website]. Justices Thomas and Kennedy in April spoke against [JURIST report] legislation intended to bring cameras into the courtroom, and Justice Breyer spoke against televising the oral arguments of criminal cases [JURIST report] during a 2005 ABA symposium.

Roberts also advocated higher salaries for federal judges, noting that the low pay relative to private sector practice deters some of the nation's best lawyers from serving on the federal bench. Roberts' 2005 year-end report [PDF text] on the federal judiciary raised similar concerns [JURIST report]. The San Francisco Chronicle has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate approved [press release] an amendment [S 7437 text] to a Homeland Security Appropriations Act 2007 [text; summary] Thursday that would prohibit the confiscation of legally owned guns during emergencies by a margin of 84-16 [roll call]. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) [official website] proposed [recorded video] the amendment in response to Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive]. During and after the disaster emergency workers and others feared for their lives if looters obtained guns from stores; local authorities made various confiscation efforts later challenged in court [JURIST report] but Vitter stated that the "declaration or state of emergency in and of itself does not give anyone the right to confiscate guns." He said 10 other states - Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, Virginia, Alaska, Idaho, Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma - now have similar laws. The National Rife Association [advocacy website] supported the legislation [NRA backgrounder]. Following its passage, NRA Chief Lobbyist, Chris Cox, said:

After Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Police Superintendent issued orders to confiscate firearms from all citizens, allegedly under a state emergency powers law. With that one order, he stripped the one means of self-protection innocent citizens had during a time of widespread civil disorder. This legislation guarantees that will never happen again.

[JURIST] The highest-ranking lawyers from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines weighed in on how terror detainees should be judged during a Thursday Senate Armed Services Committee hearing [witness list] on the impact of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [text]. The military lawyers pressed for an approach informed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice [text], which provides greater legal protections to court-martial defendants than the system of military commissions established by the Bush administration to try detainees held at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. The US Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan in June that the military commissions as initially constituted lacked proper legal authorization [JURIST report]. Navy Judge Advocate General Rear Adm. James McPherson recommended that any new framework be fair to the accused, so that if other countries mimic or otherwise take account of the US trial system, US soldiers involved in a future conflict will themselves be treated fairly.

The military lawyers also recommended flexible evidentiary and procedural rules to avoid burdening troops in combat as well as intelligence-gathering. UPI has more. The New York Times has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Sarajevo's Canton Court sentenced former Bosnian Army soldier Samir Bejtic to 14 1/2 years in prison Thursday for killing Bosnian Serbs [Balkan Peace report] in 1993 during the 1992-95 Bosnian war [timeline]. A member of the Sarajevo-based Tenth Mountain Brigade of the Bosnian army led by Bosnian Muslim Musan Topalovic [Wikipedia profile], Bejtic was convicted of participating in the murder of eight Bosnian Serbs in the village of Kazani.

Fourteen other members of the brigade led by Topalovic, who died in a government sweep in 1993, have been sentenced for crimes committed in the Kazani area, outside of Sarajevo. Bejtic escaped to Germany at the time of the other trials, and Germany later extradited him to Bosnia. His trial began in 2003 [IWPR report]. AP has more. UPI has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Saudi Arabia would like to have all of its nationals held at the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] returned to Saudi custody within one year, Saudi ambassador to the United States Prince Turki Al-Faisal [official profile] said Thursday. Approximately 95 of the over 400 Guantanamo detainees [JURIST document] are from Saudi Arabia, including two men that were awaiting trials by military commissions [JURIST news archive] before the US Supreme Court ruled in June that military commissions as initially constituted lacked proper legal authorization [JURIST report]. Two Saudis were also among three detainees who committed suicide [JURIST report] last month.

Al-Faisal said the Saudi and US governments negotiated a framework agreement to return the Saudi citizens into Saudi custody in batches. The US transferred 14 detainees back into Saudi custody last month, and another 15 detainees [JURIST reports] in May. Though top US officials have said they would like to close Guantanamo, top US State Department legal advisor John Bellinger said in June that torture concerns in the detainees' home countries complicate their release [JURIST report]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Efrain Rios Montt [Wikipedia profile], a former Guatemalan dictator, has called Spanish National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz's order for Montt's arrest last week [JURIST report] unfounded, insisting that he did not know of any crimes against humanity committed by his military officials during Guatemala's brutal 36-year civil war [Globalsecurity.org backgrounder]. During a news conference Wednesday, Montt added that the Guatemalan army "followed orders and the law." Pedraz last Friday charged several former Guatemalan military officers with genocide, torture, and other crimes against humanity, and issued international arrest warrants for their involvement in atrocities committed during the civil war, including the murder of eight Spanish priests and a 1980 military assault on the Spanish Embassy that killed 37 people. In addition to Montt, Pedraz charged five former military officials, including former head of state Oscar Humberto Mejia [Wikipedia profile], citing their failure to cooperate during his trip to Guatemala to investigate [JURIST report] the murder and genocide case originally filed by Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu [Nobel profile] in 1999. Lawyers for Montt and Mejia contend that Pedraz is biased and that Spain cannot extradite the ex-leaders because they were granted amnesty for any actions during Guatemala's civil war.

The Spanish National Court (Audiencia Nacional) [governing statute] took jurisdiction [JURIST report] of the case earlier this year, after Spain's Constitutional Court [official website] ruled [JURIST report] in 2005 that Spanish courts can exercise universal jurisdiction over war crimes committed during Guatemala's civil war [BBC timeline]. The Constitutional Court decided that universal jurisdiction outweighed national interests in cases of genocide. AP has more.

[JURIST] A New Jersey state jury in Atlantic City found Merck [corporate website] not liable Thursday for a woman's heart attack, saying that Merck adequately warned doctors [Merck press release] of the health risks from the company's painkiller Vioxx [Merck Vioxx Information Center website; JURIST news archive]. In what was the seventh Vioxx trial to reach a verdict, the jury also found that Merck did not use "unconscionable commercial products" to defraud customers by deliberately misleading doctors about Vioxx's health risks. Elaine Doherty's case marks the first case to consider whether Merck failed to warn Doherty herself about the health risks from Vioxx, with the jury determining that Merck did fail to warn Doherty; however, Merck's warnings to Doherty's doctors were sufficient.

Merck has now won [JURIST report] four Vioxx cases and lost three Vioxx cases, with over 11,000 lawsuits pending. In April, a New Jersey state court jury awarded $9 million [JURIST report] in punitive damages and $4.5 million in compensatory damages to the family of a 77-year-old heart attack victim. Another Texas jury found Merck liable last year for the death of a 59 year-old marathon runner who had taken the drug for eight months, awarding $253 million [JURIST report]; that award was reduced to $26 million under Texas punitive damages caps. A different Texas jury also awarded the family of a 71-year old man who died from a heart attack $32 million [JURIST report] - $7 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages - in April. Merck pulled the drug from the market in September 2004 after a study showed that it could double the risk of heart attack or stroke if taken for more than 18 months. Merck set aside $1 billion to fight every Vioxx court challenge. Bloomberg has more.

[JURIST] JURIST is back online after a major power failure in central Pittsburgh [Post-Gazette report] early Thursday knocked out power to the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and surrounding campus buildings. JURIST's staff dispersed to remote locations during the downtime, researching and reporting the day's national and international legal news as usual, although publication of stories to the website was not possible until a little while ago. All Thursday's content is now available in JURIST's Paper Chase archive here.

JURIST apologizes for the service interruption.