[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] decided Wednesday to move Serb nationalist war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj [BBC profile; ICTY case backgrounder] to a hospital unit adjoining its detention center [ICTY backgrounder] at Scheveningen near The Hague to monitor his medical condition. Seselj has been on hunger strike [JURIST report] for over two weeks, while demanding [statement, DOC] that the ICTY dismiss his court-appointed lawyers and allow him to prepare his defense to nine war crimes charges [indictment, PDF] with lawyers of his choosing. An ICTY spokesperson earlier acknowledged [ICTY press conference summary] that Seselj's refusal to take food and medicine had "caused his health to deteriorate" and said that Seselj would receive medical attention if such treatment became necessary "to protect Seselj's health and life."

Earlier Wednesday, Seselj's lawyers told the ICTY [JURIST report] their client had decided to continue boycotting his trial, disregarding their advice. Seselj's lawyers also said their client had not spoken to them about his case since Monday when the ICTY stripped Seselj of his right to defend himself [JURIST report] for failing to appear in court. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Canadian Parliament [official website] will revisit the issue of same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive] next week, with debate on a federal law permitting same-sex marriage [text] scheduled to begin in the House of Commons Wednesday. The ruling Conservative Party [official website] in June promised to reconsider the law [JURIST report], which was passed in 2005 [JURIST report] under the leadership of former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin. MPs will be debating whether to reconsider the law and a vote could come later next week.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper [official website] said in June that he would allow a free vote, which permits members to vote according to their conscience rather than along party lines. Current projections show that most Canadian federal lawmakers support same-sex marriage [tracking website], and a January 2006 poll [PDF text] by Environics Research Group revealed that 66 percent of those surveyed did not want the matter of same-sex marriages brought back to Parliament. When the federal law passed in 2005, Canada became the fourth country after the Netherlands, Spain and Belgium to recognize same-sex marriage. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] US District Judge Richard J. Leon [official profile] ruled [opinion, PDF; order, PDF] in Washington, DC, Wednesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) [official website] must reinstate certain housing payments for victims of Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive]. Leon granted the plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction against the payments stoppage, maintaining that FEMA had failed to provide evacuees with adequate explanations for their denials of housing assistance and their means of appeal under the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act [text]. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) [advocacy website] filed the lawsuit on behalf of displaced hurricane evacuees alleging violations of their due process rights.

FEMA responded [press release] Wednesday by defending its policies and saying it will consult with the US Department of Homeland Security [official website] and US Department of Justice [official website] to determine a formal response to the district court's ruling. FEMA still faces several other suits [JURIST news archive] relating to its termination or withdrawal or housing benefits to Katrina victims. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US government agreed to pay $2 million Wednesday in a settlement agreement [PDF text] with Brandon Mayfield, the attorney arrested [JURIST report] and detained for two weeks in May 2004 after the FBI mistakenly established that his fingerprints matched [JURIST report] those found on a bag containing detonators used in the 2004 Madrid terrorist train bombings [BBC backgrounder]. Mayfield, a Muslim convert, alleged that the FBI orchestrated his arrest because of his religious belief, though a 2006 DOJ Inspector General report [text] refuted those claims [press release]. After an investigation into his arrest and detainment, the Inspector General [official website], the DOJ's internal watchdog, cleared FBI agents involved in the incident of any wrongdoing and made several suggestions for improvement to the fingerprint identification process that have been implemented by the DOJ. The US also formally apologized [PDF text] to Mayfield per the agreement.

The settlement permits Mayfield to continue his lawsuit [JURIST report] challenging the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act [JURIST news archive]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) [corporate website] has settled fraud allegations [DOJ press release] under the False Claims Act [text], the US Justice Department said Wednesday, and has agreed to pay the US $8 million for allegedly overcharging the Army for logistical support it provided between 1999 and 2000. The DOJ alleged that KBR double-billed the military and delivered non-conforming goods to be used for the construction of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.

In August, Eagle Global Logistics, a subcontractor of KBR, settled fraud allegations [JURIST report] under the False Claims Act for $4 million for allegedly inflating invoices on Iraq military cargo shipments. Last month, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction [official website] released a report accusing KBR of violating Iraq reconstruction rules [JURIST report].

[JURIST] Significant racial and ethnic discrimination and violence persist in European Union countries, according to a report [PDF text; summary, PDF] released by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) [official website] Tuesday. According to the report, victimized groups include asylum seekers, refugees, undocumented migrants, Roma gypsies [ERRC backgrounder], Jews and Muslims. Despite identification of the problem, the EUMC detailed the difficulty in compiling data and exposing the extent of racial and ethnic bias due to lack of reporting by EU nations [EUMC press release]. Racial and ethnically motivated violence represents the most underreported type of discrimination with only Great Britain and Finland providing complete racial crime statistics, while five countries reported no crime numbers. Some countries, including France, have no statistics because they do not classify residents by race or ethnicity. The EUMC suspects substantial bias in education and housing, two sectors also lacking adequate reporting, caused by insufficient access to resources as well as active discrimination.

The EUMC speculates that the increasing migration of Middle Eastern Muslims into Europe caused a rise in discrimination figures; however, Roma and Jews are also identified as significantly vulnerable groups. The Washington Times has more.

[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour [official profile] told [transcript] the UN Human Rights Council [official website] Wednesday in the aftermath of a controversial trip [AFP report] to the Middle East that "the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory is grave and worsening, within a general climate of impunity." She called on Israel to properly investigate 19 Palestinian civilian deaths [CNN report] caused by an Israeli attack on Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip on November 8, stating that its probes must remain "transparent, credible and independent." Arbour told the council that while Israel has a duty to protect its own citizens from Palestinian attacks, it must do so within the bounds of international human rights law.

Earlier this month the US vetoed [JURIST report] a UN resolution condemning the Beit Hanun attack after Israel admitted that it was a mistake [Haaretz report]. While visiting Gaza, Arbour condemned [JURIST report] ongoing violations of Palestinian rights in the region as "intolerable". AFP has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF] Wednesday in Massachusetts v. EPA [Duke Law case backgrounder; merit briefs], 05-1120, a case where 12 states and several environmental groups are challenging an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [official website] determination that it does not have the authority under the Clean Air Act (CAA) [text] to regulate the emission of "greenhouse gases," such as carbon dioxide, by automobiles. The petitioners argued that the unfettered emission of greenhouse gases causes irrevocable damage to the environment through the erosion of coastal land. Questions remain, however, whether the petitioners have sufficiently satisfied the burden of proving that the EPA's failure to regulate caused any harm. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito appeared most reluctant to accept the petitioners' arguments, noting that EPA regulation of automobiles would have little impact on the overall emission of greenhouse gases. Lawyers representing the EPA pointed to the substantial effect on the economy that regulation would cause. Additionally the federal government lawyers argued the Bush administration's position that the EPA would not restrict emissions even if it had the authority under the CAA because scientific evidence of the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming is too uncertain. Massachusetts v. EPA is the first case concerning global warming to come before the Supreme Court. AP has more.

Also on Tuesday, the Court heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF] in Watters v. Wachovia Bank N.A. [Duke Law case backgrounder; merit briefs], 05-1342, a case asking whether the National Bank Act [text] and regulations promulgated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency [official website] pre-empt state laws regulating mortgage lending by subsidiaries of national banks. Chief Justice Roberts questioned whether pre-emption applies, suggesting that there is no inconsistency in state oversight of a bank subsidiary's financials. Justice Antonin Scalia expressed concern that ruling for Wachovia would eliminate important state safeguards on subsidiary activity. All 50 states are united in their position against federal pre-emption. AP has more.

[JURIST] UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan [official profile] Wednesday urged the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) [official website] to avoid the "political maneuvering" that plagued the rights body's predecessor, the UN Human Rights Commission [official website], telling the 47 member states that their role was to combat human rights violations even if regional allies were opposed to those efforts. In a statement [text] delivered on Annan's behalf by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour during the HRC's third session, Annan criticized the council for focusing too much on the Arab-Israeli conflict, pointing out that the atrocities in the Darfur [JURIST news archive] region of Sudan also deserve the group's attention. Annan said:

If this Council is to fulfill its vocation, and take its place as one of the paramount bodies of the United Nations, giving human rights a priority on a par with that accorded to peace and security and to development, its work must be marked by a strong sense of purpose – one in which states from all regions come together to promote the vision contained in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration for Human Rights.

That will only happen if the Council's members are willing and able to build coalitions based on principle, and on a determination to uphold human rights worldwide. Do not let yourselves be split along the fault line between north and south – between developed and developing countries – as your colleagues have done in some other parts of the system, with results inimical to progress. States that are truly determined to uphold human rights must be prepared to take action even when that means, as it sometimes will, giving offense to other states within their own region.

[JURIST] The South African National Council of Provinces [official website] has approved the Civil Unions Bill [JURIST report], legislation that would make South Africa [JURIST news archive] the first African nation to recognize same-sex unions [JURIST news archive] if President Thabo Mbeki [official profile] approves the measure. The lower house of the nation's parliament approved [JURIST report] the bill earlier this month in a 230-41 vote. While religious leaders inside the nation and elsewhere in Africa oppose the bill, calling it motivated by "foreign influence," gay rights groups have voiced their approval of the measure. The bill, without specific reference to heterosexual or same-sex couples, recognizes the "voluntary union of two persons, which is solemnized and registered by either a marriage or civil union." It also includes an opt-out clause, which allows officiants to refuse to perform a same-sex ceremony if it conflicts with his or her "conscience, religion and belief."

The government drafted the new law in response to an October 2005 South African Constitutional Court judgment [summary; JURIST report] that the 1961 Marriage Act [1997 extension text, PDF], effectively precluding same-sex marriages, violates the South African Constitution [text]. The court gave the government until December 1, 2006 to draft the new legislation. PinkNews has more.

[JURIST] Bolivian President Evo Morales [official website, in Spanish; BBC profile] signed a land redistribution bill Tuesday that he hopes will allow his government to give 77,000 square miles of unproductive land to the country's poor. The president signed the bill amidst shouts of approval from more than 3,000 Indian supporters who may gain land from the new measure, which is part of Morales' plan to put more power in the hands of Bolivia's indigenous majority [JURIST report]. Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia [JURIST news archive], has already given 8,500 square miles of land to farmers this year. Though it is unclear how the new law will take effect, the government will probably begin by determining what constitutes unproductive land.

The measure passed unanimously 15-0 in Bolivia's Senate [official website, in Spanish] Tuesday, though 27 conservative lawmakers did not show up after walking out last week in an attempt to block the bill. Morales' Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) [party website, in Spanish; Wikipedia backgrounder] party currently holds 12 seats in the Senate. One senator from the opposition party Podemos [party website] along with assistants of two senators from minor opposition parties voted for the measure as well. Fourteen seats constitute a quorum and it is unclear whether the assistants' votes were legal. Morales is also currently facing challenges [JURIST report] following a move to give Morales' leftist party more power [JURIST report] in the special assembly currently rewriting the country's constitution. AP has more.

[JURIST] A Serbian war crimes suspect will continue boycotting his war crimes trial, despite the urgings of his court-appointed lawyers, who have not had contact with him since Monday. Lawyers for Serbian war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj [BBC profile; ICTY case backgrounder] told the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] that their client has refused to speak with them about his case since Monday, when the ICTY stripped Seselj of his right to defend himself [JURIST report] after he failed to appear in court. Seselj, who has been on hunger strike [JURIST report] for over two weeks, also skipped a pre-trial hearing [JURIST report] last week. An ICTY appeals panel ruled in October that Seselj could represent himself [JURIST report] during trial, but warned that future courtroom antics would not be tolerated. During a pre-trial hearing earlier this month, Seselj was removed from the courtroom [JURIST report] for disrupting proceedings whenever the court-appointed lawyers attempted to speak.

Seselj was indicted by the ICTY in 2003 and charged [indictment, PDF] in connection with his role in establishing rogue paramilitary units affiliated with the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party [party website, in Serbian]. Those units are believed to have massacred and otherwise persecuted Croats and other non-Serbs in the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. Seselj has pleaded not guilty to the charges, five of which were dropped [JURIST report] by the ICTY earlier this month. AP has more.

[JURIST] The trial of six German defendants accused of breaching their fiduciary duties during the takeover of telecom giant Mannesmann [corporate website] came to an end Wednesday, with the defendants agreeing to pay substantial financial settlements in exchange for no criminal charges on their records. The defendants, including Deutsche Bank [corporate website] chief executive Josef Ackermann [Wikipedia profile], former Mannesmann executives, and labor leaders, were accused of illegally approving bonuses totaling 57 million euros ($74 million) for former executives when Vodafone [corporate website] assumed Mannesmann in 2000. The six men were acquitted [JURIST report] once before in 2004 when the court ruled that the approval of the bonus payments was not a criminal offense, but the German Federal Supreme Court [official website, in German] ordered the case to be retried in 2005.

Duesseldorf trial judge Stefan Drees approved the settlement reached last week, which mandates the six defendants to personally pay a total of 5.8 million euros ($7.5 million). A substantial portion of the money will be forwarded to charities with the remainder of the sum going to state coffers. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers for German national Khalid el-Masri [JURIST news archive; ACLU case materials] argued Wednesday before the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that his civil case against the CIA for his alleged 2003 extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive] from Macedonia and his subsequent detention in Afghanistan should be reinstated [ACLU press release; ACLU press conference recorded video]. A federal judge in May dismissed the lawsuit [order, PDF; JURIST report] on the grounds that it would reveal state secrets. El-Masri's ACLU attorneys argued that details of el-Masri's allegations and of a subsequent CIA investigation are already public knowledge, and that without a trial, the CIA will escape punishment for clearly illegal conduct. El-Masri claims the CIA held him at a secret Afghanistan prison for five months, subjecting him to inhumane conditions and coercive interrogation, and eventually released him in Albania in 2004 without charge.

In October, el-Masri testified before a Spanish judge [JURIST report] as part of a Spanish investigation [JURIST report] into whether the CIA used Spanish airports to transport el-Masri to countries where they could legally torture him. In June, a German investigator concluded that no evidence had surfaced to disprove el-Masri's story [JURIST report]. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] A judge in the Saddam Hussein trial [JURIST news archive] ejected a defense lawyer from the courtroom Wednesday and ordered a day-long detention after the lawyer repeatedly addressed a prosecutor as "brother." Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa had previously warned Badih Aref, lawyer for former intelligence director Farhan al-Jubouri [TrialWatch profile], to respect courtroom formalities, and found Aref guilty of "violating professional conduct" rules. Last month, Aref boycotted proceedings after some 1,000 pages of his defense documents were stolen [JURIST report] from the lawyer's lounge in the Iraq Supreme Court building.

On Tuesday, Hussein sought to bar testimony [JURIST report] of an American forensic scientist during proceedings at his genocide trial, demanding a neutral witness from a country that was not involved in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Tuesday also saw a group of UN human rights experts urging officials not to execute Hussein [JURIST report] due to procedural and substantive flaws surrounding his conviction in his first trial. Hussein was sentenced to death [JURIST report] earlier this month for crimes against humanity [charging instrument, PDF] committed in the Iraqi town of Dujail [JURIST news archive; BBC trial timeline]. An appeals panel is expected to rule [JURIST report] on the verdict and sentence by mid-January 2007. Prosecutors hope to complete the Anfal trial before Hussein is executed. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Flood damage caused by Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive] may be covered under those insurance policies that do not specifically exclude from coverage damage caused by negligence, according to a federal court opinion [PDF text] handed down Monday. Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. of the US Eastern District of New Orleans rejected a bid by insurers to dismiss plantiffs' actions in a set of consolidated cases [LAED materials]. Applying the Louisiana Civil Code, Duval ruled that insurance policies should be strictly construed against insurers after finding that much of the flood damage resulting from the hurricane was caused by levee failures. He concluded that the term policy "flood" refers only to naturally-caused flooding unless the policy specifically defines the term to cover flooding caused by man as well. He nonetheless noted that certain policies, including those written by State Farm and Hartford Insurance Company, categorically excluded all coverage for flood damage and should not be construed to cover any flood damage. The cases against the insurers will now go forward pending review of Duval's ruling by the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In the first Katrina-related insurance lawsuit to go to trial, a federal judge in Mississippi ruled in August that Nationwide Insurance was not obligated to cover a policyholder's claims [JURIST report] for water damage caused by the hurricane. AP has more.

[JURIST] An Italian judge held a hearing Wednesday to determine whether Mario Lozano, a US Army Specialist, should stand trial in connection with the death of Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari [BBC profile] at an Iraqi checkpoint in March 2005. Italian prosecutors requested an indictment in June after investigators concluded their probe [JURIST reports] into Calipari's death, finding Lozano responsible for "voluntary homicide." If the court chooses to indict Lozano for manslaughter and attempted double homicide, as prosecutors want, Lozano will almost certainly decline to comply and will be tried in absentia. Lozano's lawyer described the incident as a "tragic accident."

Calipari was shot to death in 2005 while driving to the Baghdad airport after securing the release of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena from Iraqi kidnappers. A second Italian agent, Andrea Carpani, was also wounded in the shooting by US soldiers that perceived the car as insurgents speeding through a security checkpoint. US and Italian officials have failed to agree [JURIST report] on details surrounding Calipari's death. A US investigation [JURIST report] into the incident cleared US soldiers of any wrongdoing but an initial Italian probe [JURIST report], while also concluding that the killing was accidental, found that there were serious miscommunications among US officials in Iraq, and confusion about the rules of engagement for checkpoints. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A US district judge has declared unconstitutional [CCR press release] portions of a 2001 presidential executive order that allowed President Bush "unfettered discretion" to designate organizations as terrorist organizations. In a decision [PDF text] released Tuesday, Judge Audrey Collins ruled that Executive Order 13224 [PDF text; DOS backgrounder], signed twelve days after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was unconstitutionally vague as it gave the president "unfettered discretion" to effectively "blacklist" terror groups without applying objective criteria in making the designation. Collins said that portions of the order violated the petitioners' First Amendment rights in that it "imposed penalties for mere association" with a designated group, and because several operative terms in the order are so vague as to give the president nearly unlimited power to declare organizations illegal.

The government did not defend the constitutionality of the executive order, but instead attacked the plaintiffs' standing to bring the constitutional challenge, as the organizations they were penalized for associating with, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), were designated as terrorist organizations by the secretary of state and not the president. Collins rejected that argument, writing:

this attempt to challenge Plaintiffs' standing fails to meet Plaintiffs' argument, which is that they may be subject to designation under the President's authority for any reason, including for associating with the PKK and the LTTE, for associating with anyone listed in the Annex, or for no reason. Because the President has used his designation authority in the past, and because there is no apparent limit on his ability to continue to do so, Plaintiffs have standing to bring their constitutional challenge....