[JURIST] Senior US Senate Republicans reached an agreement on military commissions legislation [JURIST news archive] with the White House Thursday that would make the President the sole arbiter of the meaning of the Geneva Conventions [ICRC materials] for the United States and would bar litigants such as detainees from invoking the Conventions in habeas or civil actions in the federal courts. Language [text, PDF] agreed upon under the intra-GOP deal would explicitly recognize the President's authority "as provided by the Constitution and by this section [of the bill]," to "interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions" for the United States and would prohibit any person from invoking "the Geneva Conventions or any protocols thereto in any habeas or civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States, is a party as a source of rights, in any court of the United States or its States or territories."

The agreed text does, however, set out a series of specified instances of prohibited "grave breaches" outside of presidential interpretation deemed to fall under Common Article 3 [text] of the Conventions and intended as substitutes for or "clarifications" of the Article's own broad bans on "cruel treatment and torture", "outrages upon personal dignity" and so on. These will now be put through as amendments to the referential language of the existing federal War Crimes Act [text; JURIST report]. To entrench them and provide a further measure of protection from war crimes liability for US interrogators the agreed text further declares that "No foreign or international sources of law shall supply a basis for a rule of decision in the courts of the United States in interpreting the prohibitions enumerated...". A residual prohibition against "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" is explicitly made subject to interpretation under the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution and US reservations [text] to the UN Convention Against Torture. Other language [text, PDF] also provides that classified evidence can be used against charged detainees in military commission trials, but that a summary of that evidence must be provided to defendants.

Commenting on the deal, Senator John McCain declared that "The agreement that we have entered into gives the president the tools that he needs to continue to fight the war on terror and bring these evil people to justice", adding "there is no doubt that the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved." In a statement [text] from the White House late Thursday President Bush said:

this agreement preserves the most single -- most potent tool we have in protecting America and foiling terrorist attacks, and that is the CIA program to question the world's most dangerous terrorists and to get their secrets.

The measure also creates military commissions that will bring these ruthless killers to justice. In short, the agreement clears the way to do what the American people expect us to do, to capture terrorists, to detain terrorists, to question terrorists, and then to try them. I hope the Congress will send me legislation before it wraps up their business next week.

[JURIST] US Central Intelligence Agency [official website; JURIST news archive] officers concerned about being prosecuted [JURIST report] for illegal interrogation tactics refused to carry out interrogations of terror suspects, contributing to pressure on the Bush administration to empty its secret prisons and transfer top terrorism suspects to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba [JURIST news archive], according to a report in the Financial Times. While US officials have formally denied this, former CIA officials and others associated with the secret prisons program who spoke to the Times said the concerns helped to bring the program to an end perhaps sooner than intended.

The White House [official website] has been heavily criticized [JURIST report] for its secret prison system [JURIST report], which President Bush acknowledged earlier this month. The president has been battling with Senate Republicans over detainee rights [JURIST report] since Bush proposed legislation that some say would violate international laws designed to protect prisoners in wartime. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak [official profile] said Thursday in Geneva that "the situation as far as torture is concerned in Iraq is now completely out of hand", and is so bad that "many people say that it is worse than in the times of Saddam Hussein." Nowak has not been able to visit Iraq personally, but based his comments on reports of conditions in Iraqi prisons [JURIST report] and the actions of Iraqi militias and insurgents [JURIST report]. He also noted reports of inhumane treatment [JURIST report] in US and foreign-operated detention facilities, but said those had improved after controversy surrounding them. Reuters has more.

Soon after Nowak's remarks were made, a US State Department official denied the charge that the torture situation in Iraq now was worse than the regime of what a US official called "state-sanctioned torture" under Saddam. The Financial Times has more.

[JURIST] Amnesty International [advocacy website] said Thursday that China [JURIST news archive] has not been working quickly enough [Amnesty press release] to meet its promise to improve human rights in the country in order to host the 2008 Olympic Games [official website] in Beijing. Amnesty said China's overall record was poor, and suggested that although progress had been made in some areas, rights protection had deteriorated in others, citing the executions of thousands of people following unfair trials and China's retrenchment against full Internet and press freedom. The rights group shared its findings with the International Olympic Committee [official website] and said China will need to increase its efforts to meet its pledge to the committee.

China called the allegations "groundless," saying Amnesty is biased and has ulterior motives in releasing such information. A spokesperson for the Olympic committee said it is still unclear whether China will be able to meet the 2008 deadline when it still has two years to comply and also indicated that the committee is not in a position to pressure governments. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers for the US Department of Justice Thursday asked the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals [official website] to reverse a ruling [JURIST report] of Judge Garr King of US District Court in Portland to allow a lawsuit by the US branch of the Saudi Arabia-based Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation [Wikipedia profile] to proceed against the US government over the warrantless wiretapping [JURIST news archive] of communications between the foundation and its attorneys. Earlier this month, King denied the government's motion to dismiss [opinion, PDF], rejecting contentions [JURIST report] that the proceeding would reveal state secrets.

The Oregon lawsuit, filed [JURIST report] by the now-defunct foundation in February, claims that the NSA had illegally wiretapping several conversations between the charity and its attorneys, having failed to get a court order as required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [official materials]. AP has more.

[JURIST] A group of five United Nations human rights investigators told the UN Human Rights Council [official website] in Geneva Thursday that pending US legislation [text, PDF; White House factsheet] drafted by the Bush administration to clarify interrogation methods for terror suspects will breach Common Article 3 [text] of the Geneva Conventions [ICRC materials], which bars "outrages on personal dignity" and "humiliating and degrading treatment." Earlier this week, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] defended the legislation again before Congress, saying that interrogators need clear guidance on acceptable practices [JURIST report] in order to effectively pursue counterterrorism measures, but the specifications have already raised concerns among US lawmakers that the scope of protection for detainees is actually being narrowed.

The group of independent envoys, speaking in a joint statement to the Council, also said that the US admission of secret prisons [JURIST report] used to house terror suspects suggests "very serious human rights violations." Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A federal judge ruled [PDF text] Thursday that all evidence relevant to the CIA leak case [JURIST news archive] against former vice-presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense profile] should be considered for admission, despite government concerns about confidentiality. Attorneys for the government had suggested a three-part test for potential evidence which would allow classified information to be admitted only if its benefit to Libby's defense outweighed the government's need to maintain confidentiality. US District Judge Reggie Walton [official profile] disagreed, however, saying that once he decides if the evidence is relevant, prosecutors can then suggest that certain parts be redacted or summarized.

Prosecutors have alleged that Libby is committing "graymail" [Wikipedia backgrounder] - attempting to sabotage the case by pushing for the release of government secrets. Libby claims he is interested in the information, which includes daily intelligence memos of US Vice-President Dick Cheney [official profile], to show he was preoccupied with other things during the time Valerie Plame's identity was leaked, so that he truthfully could not recall his conversations with the media. Libby has pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] to obstruction of justice and perjury charges [JURIST report] in connection with the government's investigation into the leak. AP has more.

[JURIST] The retrial of five Bulgarian nurses [JURIST report] and one Palestinian doctor accused of infecting over 400 Libyan patients, primarily children [JURIST news archive], with the HIV virus, was adjourned Thursday after a defense lawyer did not show up in court. In the absence of leading defense lawyer Othmane Bizanti, the trial was postponed until October 31. Bizanti was allegedly admitted into a hospital due to an illness. The retrial began in May but has been adjourned several times [JURIST report] in the ensuing months.

The six health workers were first convicted in May 2004 and sentenced to death [JURIST reports] for deliberately infecting the children, but the Libyan Supreme Court overturned the convictions [JURIST report] in December 2005 and ordered a retrial. Bulgaria and its allies, including the US [JURIST report] and the European Union, contend that the nurses are innocent and maintain that their confessions were coerced through torture. The defendants, detained since 1999, previously argued that the children were infected with the virus before treatment. French Professor Luc Montagnier, the co-discover of the HIV virus, testified [JURIST report] that the infection had spread in the children's hospital before the Bulgarian nurses began their contracts there. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The Royal Thai Army [official website] which took over the government of Thailand [JURIST news archive] through a coup [JURIST report] earlier this week said Thursday that four top leaders of the government of ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra [BBC profile] have been detained. The new military rulers also took over the responsibilities of Parliament [official website], prohibiting all meetings by political parties, barring the creation of any new parties, placing restrictions on the media, and implementing limitations on public meetings. The new regime, which calls itself the Council of Administrative Reform, says it was formed to maintain peace and order. Army Commander-in-Chief Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratkalin [BBC profile] is currently leading the government and will serve as prime minister for a two-week period, after which time a civilian will be selected to replace him. AP has more.

Meanwhile, Thaksin released a statement [Reuters report] Thursday calling on the military leaders to quickly schedule a general election and work toward upholding democracy in Thailand. Thaksin is currently in London and has not revealed plans to return to Bangkok, while the Thai Office of the Auditor-General [official website, English version] continues to investigate allegations against Thaksin of alleged corruption and election fraud [JURIST report] while he was in office. The Bush administration has criticized the coup [press briefing transcript], with US State Department [official website] deputy spokesman Tom Casey calling it a "step backward for democracy." The US has also indicated that trade relations with Thailand are in question until democracy is restored. AP has more. The Bangkok Post has local coverage.

[JURIST] A federal judge Wednesday ruled that the Pentagon must release additional documents revealing the names of Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees who have either been released or who have alleged abuse by prison guards or other detainees. The order was made pursuant to a lawsuit [JURIST report] brought by the Associated Press [media website] in March under the Freedom of Information Act [text]. US District Judge Jed Rakoff said the public has a well-established interest in uncovering "government malfeasance" and gave the government one week to hand over the materials, rejecting government arguments that to do so would infringe on prisoners' privacy rights. He pointed out that several detainees have publicly alleged abuse [JURIST news archive] both during and after their imprisonments at Guantanamo, and revealing their identities was never a problem for them. He also ordered the government to release documents regarding eight investigations into alleged abuse by military personnel and nearly 12 investigations of prisoner-on-prisoner abuse. AP has more.

The Pentagon has disclosed the names of present and former Guantanamo detainees in fits and starts since AP first brought its suit. In April, the Pentagon released a list of 558 detainees who had gone through reviews by Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT). In May, under a separate agreement with AP, the Pentagon provided a list of 759 current and former Guantanamo prisoners [JURIST report]. A military spokesman said at the time that the list contained the names of "every single individual detained under DOD control" at Guantanamo since detention operations began in January 2002, but acknowledged in questioning that he "wouldn't know" of any other detainees who might have been held there by the CIA or other US arms "because I can't speak for other agencies."

[JURIST] A US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] spokesman retreated Wednesday from comments [JURIST report] made earlier this week by US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] on the case of Canadian Maher Arar [advocacy website; CBC timeline] in which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the US was not responsible for his removal to Syria and that he was not aware Arar was tortured there. Charles Miller said Wednesday that Gonzales was just trying to make the point that the US Department of Homeland Security [official website] now handles deportation issues. The comments by Gonzales stirred controversy as they followed a report by a Canadian commission [official website] that cited public records documenting an order by the US to deport Arar to Syria from the US, where he was in transit from Tunisia on his way back home to Canada. The New York Times has more.

Meanwhile, the Canadian House of Commons [official website] Wednesday voted to apologize to Arar, but the Prime Minister Stephen Harper [official website] has so far refused to offer a formal apology on behalf of the country's Conservative government. The commission cited the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) [official website] for giving false evidence to the US linking Arar to terrorists, prompting the US decision to send him to Syria, where he was born. From Canada, CTV has local coverage.

[JURIST] A Louisiana grand jury in New Orleans indicted Salvador and Mabel Mangano Wednesday on 35 charges of negligent homicide and 64 charges of cruelty to the infirm from the couple's alleged refusal to evacuate a St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish under a mandatory evacuation order during Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive]. Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti [official website] charged the couple last year [JURIST report] after nearly three dozen elderly and infirm residents drowned [NYT report; victim list, PDF] in the one-story nursing home, overwhelmed by flood waters in only 20 minutes.

Earlier this month, the Manganos sued a number of state and local government officials [JURIST report] arguing that the government should share in liability from 34 lawsuits filed by families of the victims as it did not undertake its own evacuation effort. USA Today has more. The New Orleans Times-Picayune has local coverage.

[JURIST] A judge in Turkey [JURIST news archive] Thursday acquitted Turkish novelist Elif Shafak [personal website] on charges that she "insulted the Turkish identity" in violation of Article 301 [Amnesty International backgrounder] of the country's penal code, for comments referring to an Armenian genocide [Wikipedia backgrounder] contained in one of her books. As many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed in the then-Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1917 in what Armenians consider a genocide; Turkey has insisted that the deaths do not constitute genocide [Turkish DC Embassy backgrounder]. Shafak was acquitted shortly after the trial started because the judge said there was too little evidence to convict her. Some of the prosecutors withdrew from the trial before it ended because they claimed the judge was under pressure to throw out the case.

Turkey is currently seeking membership to the European Union (EU) [official website], which has urged [JURIST report] Turkey to abolish Article 301 because it infringes upon the freedom of expression. Despite revising [JURIST report] portions of the penal code last year, Turkish leaders are torn over whether to eliminate the article completely, fearing the potential impact on government elections scheduled for next year given that nationalists favor the law. Criminal prosecutions have been brought against several other prominent writers for discussing the alleged Armenian genocide, including Hrant Dink and Orhan Pamuk [JURIST reports]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The US House Judiciary Committee [official website] voted 20 to 16 along party lines Wednesday to approve [press release, PDF] the Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act of 2006 [HR 5825 summary], a measure that would relax warrant requirements for electronic surveillance [JURIST news archive] of certain domestic communications, making such warrants easier and faster to secure. The legislation would also permit wiretaps on US citizens for up to 90 days following a terrorist attack, and would retroactively shield people and companies from liability for complying with surveillance requests from government intelligence programs, such as those at issue in several pending lawsuits [JURIST report] against AT&T and other telecom providers. According to the committee's press release, the bill "updates and reforms the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to fight the modern terrorist threat and provides increased congressional and FISA Court oversight of surveillance operations." House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner [official website] called the legislation "critical to our national efforts to detect and disrupt acts of terrorism."

Critics of the legislation, including Rep. John Conyers (MI) [official website], the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, have opposed the bill because it fails to limit executive power to conduct warrantless surveillance and extends permissible eavesdropping to people and companies with no connection to foreign governments and terrorists. The Computer and Communications Industry Association [advocacy website], members of which include Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, said in an open letter [PDF] to the committee on Tuesday that the proposed legislation would "corrode the fundamental openness and freedom necessary" for communications networks. CNET News has more.

[JURIST] The US House Judiciary Committee [official website] approved the Military Commissions Act [HR 6054 summary] Wednesday 20-19, but only after its Republican leadership harnessed enough votes to overcome an initial 20-17 vote that would have killed the legislation. Key Republican members were missing when the first vote was taken. The House bill closely follows the controversial draft legislation [PDF text; White House fact sheet] President Bush presented [JURIST report] to Congress last week.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) [official website] said [press release] afterwards:

The terrorist tribunals legislation provides congressional authorization to establish a fair and effective procedure to prosecute dangerous terrorists. In taking this action we provide terrorists - such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks - the fairness and legal protections that none of their innocent victims ever enjoyed.

[JURIST] US Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty [official profile] argued against the pending Free Flow of Information Act of 2006 [S 2831 summary] during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing [witness list] Wednesday, saying that a federal shield law for reporters will hinder national security investigations by encouraging people to leak classified information if reporters are protected from revealing their sources. In his prepared statement [text], McNulty said:

Our nation is engaged in a war on terror, and the Department's highest priority is to prevent another attack. ... To publish the full contours of our prevention efforts would provide our enemy with unacceptable opportunities. Certain information must be kept classified and outside the public domain. ...

The consequences of leaking are extraordinarily grave. Leaks lay bare aspects of our national defense; they provide a window into steps we are taking to secure our country; they risk arming terrorists with precisely the information needed to avoid detection in plotting an attack upon our troops or communities; in short, they expose and damage our nation.

[JURIST] An Iraqi woman who attempted to detonate a suicide bomb as part of the 2005 deadly hotel bombings in Amman [CTV report] was sentenced to death Thursday by a Jordanian military court. Sajida al-Rishawi was convicted along with six others who were tried in absentia of conspiracy to carry out a terrorist act causing death and destruction and illegal possession of weapons and explosives; al-Rishawi was the only defendant present for the trial. The alleged former head of al Qaeda in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi [BBC profile], who claimed responsibility for the attacks which killed 60 people, was sentenced [JURIST report] in absentia to death by a military court in Jordan [JURIST news archive] in February.

In the wake of the bombings, Jordan's National Assembly [official website] passed a controversial new anti-terrorism bill [JURIST report] that opposition parties claim is tantamount to "martial law" [JURIST report] and an impermissible curb on civil liberties. A top UN official encouraged the Jordanian authorities to revisit the legislation [JURIST report] to address rights issues. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Clarence Hill [NCADP profile; FLDOC profile], who was convicted of the 1982 murder of a police officer, was executed Wednesday in Florida after the US Supreme Court denied [order, PDF] his request to stay the execution. Five justices voted to refuse the stay; Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter and Stevens would have granted the stay of execution. Hill filed a petition [JURIST report] Monday with the US Supreme Court after the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit denied [opinion, PDF] a motion to stay Hill's execution while he pursues an appeal arguing that Florida's method of lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment [text]. In a June 2006 decision in Hill v. McDonough [Duke Law case backgrounder], the Supreme Court held [JURIST report] that a death row inmate can challenge the constitutionality of a state's method of lethal injection [JURIST news archive] under 42 USC 1983 [text] even when all other appeals have been exhausted. The Court previously granted a stay of execution [JURIST report] for Hill in January 2006 to allow time to consider the case.

Hill's lawyers had argued [JURIST report] that the Florida system of execution can cause severe pain. Like other states that authorize lethal injection [DPIC backgrounder], Florida uses a three-drug system to execute criminals; the first of which acts as a painkiller while the second one paralyzes, and finally the third drug causes a fatal heart attack. A 2005 study [registration required] published in the medical journal Lancet [journal website], however, indicated that the painkiller may wear off before the inmate dies. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Hong Kong Court of Appeal [official backgrounder] Wednesday upheld [judgment text] a 2005 ruling [JURIST report] that laws prohibiting gay sex are unconstitutional and discriminatory and violate Hong Kong's Basic Law [text and background] and the Bill of Rights [text]. The law in the former British colony, now a Special Administrative Region [HK government website] of the People's Republic of China, authorizes life sentences for men under 21 who engage in sodomy, while heterosexual and lesbian relationships are legal after the age of 16 and their sexual activity prior to age 16 only calls for a 5-year maximum jail sentence. Chief High Court Judge Geoffrey Ma ruled Wednesday that there was no justification for the different age limit for homosexual men.

The case was brought by 21-year-old Billy Leung whose lawyer called the court's decision "good news for equal rights." Homosexuality in Hong Kong [JURIST news archive] was only decriminalized in 1991 and the Hong Kong government has been criticized for challenging the 2005 ruling. AFP has more.

[JURIST] A federal judge Wednesday reinstated [opinion, PDF] a 2001 ban on road construction in almost a third of US forests, ruling that the Bush administration did not conduct appropriate environmental research before suspending the rule and giving states the authority to manage their own forests. The original Roadless Area Conservation Rule [USDA backgrounder] was implemented by former US President Bill Clinton [official profile] in 2001, but was replaced [JURIST report] by the Bush administration in 2005 with a rule [text] that allowed governors to request that regulations on the management of roadless areas be developed to meet the needs of individual states. The reinstated Clinton-era rule prohibits mining, logging and road construction in the forests of 38 states and Puerto Rico, totaling more than 58 million acres of land.

US District Court Judge Elizabeth Laporte found in favor of 20 environmental groups and California, Washington, New Mexico, and Oregon, who sued the US Forest Service [official website]. While attorneys for Earthjustice [advocacy group], which represented the environmental groups in the case, praised the decision [press release], members of the timber industry and Colorado Gov. Bill Owens [official website] criticized the ruling, saying states should be able to manage their own forests by using citizen opinion polls. Deputy Undersecretary for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) [official website], David Tenny [official profile], said the government is currently deciding whether to appeal the ruling. AP has more.

[JURIST] A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] has ruled [opinion, PDF] that a program in San Diego County [official website] which uses peace officers to search the homes of welfare applicants without having warrants does not violate constitutional bars against unreasonable searches or invasion of privacy. In Tuesday's 2-1 decision, the court said the visits by peace officers under Project 100%, designed to verify the applicant's eligibility for welfare benefits, should not be considered searches within the terms of the US and state constitutions. The court further stated that even if they could be considered searches, they are not unreasonable since the searches can only be done with the applicant's consent, they take place during normal business hours, and the welfare candidates are told about the searches when applying for benefits. The majority relied on the US Supreme Court's 1971 opinion in Wyman v. James [text], where the Supreme Court held that such visits do not amount to searches because they are not conducted as part of a criminal investigation, but a dissent to the San Diego case offered by Judge Raymond Fisher [official profile] pointed out that the case before the high court involved visits by social workers and not by peace officers of the local district attorney's office.

The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties [advocacy website] in 2000 on behalf of five welfare candidates who argued that the searches did not comply with state welfare provisions [press release]. Under the San Diego county project, welfare applicants must consent to the unannounced searches, which allow investigators to look inside open closets and cabinets, and applicants are usually denied welfare benefits if they do not agree. The plaintiffs plan to appeal the court's decision to the full Ninth Circuit. The San Diego Union-Tribune has local coverage.