[JURIST] The European Union has agreed to adopt a "measured, step-by-step approach" to achieving a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty, according to German Minister of State Gunter Gloser, addressing [speech text] the European Parliament [official website] on Wednesday. The EU adopted an advocacy stance on the issue in 1998 after the signing of the Guidelines to EU policy towards third countries on the death penalty [text]. Following the execution of Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive], Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, a staunch death penalty opponent [JURIST report], submitted [IPS report] to the UN General Assembly a resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty, but Britain withheld needed support [Independent report], causing the EU as a whole to stop short of presenting the resolution itself. British diplomats said the decision not to support the resolution was partly meant to relieve pressure on the US.

Gloser said Wednesday:

In view of the considerable prevailing risk of failure, the EU has as yet declined to table a resolution in the General Assembly of the United Nations. Instead, an unprecedented non-binding declaration against the death penalty was submitted to the General Assembly on the initiative of the EU on 19 December 2006. It was supported by 85 countries from all regional groups. This was an encouraging result, but at the same time confirmed that the success of an EU resolution in the UN General Assembly cannot yet be considered guaranteed.

Where do we go from here?

All EU partners are agreed that we want to actively bring forward our efforts to fight the death penalty, at UN level too. But it is also clear that conditions remain difficult, and that the EU can only achieve success with a measured, step-by-step approach. Our priority should remain to do all we can to rule out the failure of a new EU initiative. A failure on part of the EU would mean a success for those who support the death penalty and a setback in the fight against this inhumane form of punishment. We cannot and must not let this happen!

Some major non-governmental players (including Amnesty International) are thus warning against hasty action and have suggested that it could be counter-productive for the EU to insist on a renewed debate on this topic in the UN General Assembly.

At the General Affairs Council on 22 January, it was therefore agreed that we should first develop a carefully considered approach which will gradually lend our topic greater weight in the United Nations. Ambassadors in New York and Geneva were accordingly asked to assess all possibilities to advance this discussion at UN level. We should also take account of the recommendations of relevant NGOs regarding further measures to combat the death penalty at UN level. On the basis of these findings, the German Council Presidency will draw up proposals for further action which it will present to its EU partners in February.

[JURIST] The Venezuelan legislature unanimously approved a bill Wednesday granting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez [official website, in Spanish; BBC profile] authority to enact laws by presidential decree without legislative approval for the next 18 months. The same measure received initial approval [JURIST report] by the Venezuelan National Assembly last week.

Since winning his third re-election last December, Chavez has called for "revolutionary laws" to transform Venezuela [JURIST news archive] into a socialist state. He has announced plans to nationalize important sectors of the economy, including mining, telecommunications, natural gas and electricity. Chavez hopes to re-write the constitution [text] to abolish presidential term limits, allowing him to run for a fourth term in 2012. Another measure would eliminate the autonomy of the Central Bank [official website, in Spanish] authority and end foreign ownership of Venezuela's crude oil refineries, a major source of oil for the United States. Critics say that Wednesday's vote cedes too much power to Chavez at the expense of the legislative bodies. AP has more.

[JURIST] US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday that the Justice Department will turn over to the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] the text of an order, granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) [FJC backgrounder], authorizing government surveillance of transmissions coming into or going outside of the country where one party was suspected of association with a terrorist organization. Gonzales balked at turning over the order [JURIST report] two weeks ago during a judiciary committee hearing after he informed the committee via a letter [PDF text; US DOJ background briefing transcript, DOC] that the Bush administration has agreed to submit all domestic surveillance [JURIST news archive] requests from now on to the FISC for review and approval under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [text]. The letter explained that the FISC in January had "issued orders authorizing the Government to target for collection international communications into or out of the United States where there is probable cause to believe that one of the communicants is a member or agent of Al Qaeda or an associated terrorist organization."

The orders will only be circulated to committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), ranking member Arlen Specter (R-PA), and to members and staffers of the House and Senate intelligence committees, who had previously received clearance to access the orders. Gonzales said Wednesday that he had never declared the order off-limits to the committee, only that the orders were sensitive and that procedures must be in place to ensure they wont be leaked. AP has more.

[JURIST] A three-year delay can be expected before former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre [HRW materials; JURIST news archive] is brought to trial, Senegal Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said Tuesday following an African Union (AU) summit in Ethiopia. The delay is necessary for Senegal to establish the legal procedures required to try Habre, and to secure funding for what is expected to be an expensive and lengthy process. In July 2006, the AU assembly recommended that Habre face trial in Senegal [JURIST report], though Senegalese courts dismissed an action against Habre in 2001 [HRW case backgrounder], claiming that they lacked jurisdiction over crimes committed elsewhere. A Senegalese appeals court later refused to extradite Habre pursuant to an international arrest warrant [JURIST reports] that a Belgian court issued under its universal jurisdiction laws [HRW backgrounder].

Habre is accused of committing some 40,000 acts of murder and torture of political opponents during his rule from 1982 to 1990. He was stripped of power in 1990 and fled to Senegal, where he is now living under arrest [JURIST report]. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade agreed to try Habre [JURIST report] in Senegal last year. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] South Dakota lawmakers introduced a new abortion bill Wednesday that would ban the practice except in cases of rape, incest and serious risk to a woman's health. The state legislature passed [JURIST report] a law banning most abortions [text, PDF] in the state last year, but voters rejected the ban [JURIST report] at the polls in November. The law did not allow abortions where a woman's health is at risk and some say that is why voters rejected it. AP has more.

In related news, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit [official website] announced earlier this month that it will rehear arguments on a preliminary injunction imposed last year [JURIST report] which prevented South Dakota from enforcing a 2005 abortion law [text] that requires doctors who perform abortions to tell women that abortion ends the lives of "human beings."

[JURIST] New war crimes charges will be filed against Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees beginning as early as Friday, chief prosecutor Col. Moe Davis (USAF) [official profile, PDF] said Tuesday. Davis said, however, that charges are only expected to be filed against a few of the 10 detainees who were scheduled for trial before the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [opinion text] that military commissions as initially constituted lacked proper legal authorization [JURIST report]. Once the military files the war crimes charges, under the new military tribunal system [JURIST report] created when Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) [PDF text; JURIST news archive] in September, the detainees have the right to preliminary hearings within 30 days and a jury trial within 120 days. The Pentagon's trial procedures were released earlier this month in a manual [PDF text; JURIST report] distributed on Capital Hill.

On Monday, Davis said he was very likely to recommend the death penalty [JURIST report] for some of the 14 high-value detainees [DNI backgrounder, PDF] moved to the camp [JURIST report] from CIA secret prisons in September. The first evidence is expected to be presented by this summer. AP has more.

[JURIST] Turkey may legally require a political party to win at least 10 percent of the national vote in parliamentary elections in order to win seats in the country's National Assembly, the European Court of Human Rights [official website] ruled Tuesday. Two Turkish politicians, both ethnic Kurds, had challenged the 10 percent requirement as a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [text], which guarantees the right to fair elections for signatory nations:

The High Contracting Parties undertake to hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature.

Consequently, while noting that it would be desirable for the threshold complained of to be lowered and/or for corrective counterbalances to be introduced to ensure optimal representation of the various political tendencies without sacrificing the objective sought (the establishment of stable parliamentary majorities), the Court considers that it is important in this area to leave sufficient latitude to the national decision-makers. In that connection, it also attaches importance to the fact that the electoral system, including the threshold in question, is the subject of much debate within Turkish society and that numerous proposals of ways to correct the threshold’s effects are being made both in parliament and among leading figures of civil society.

[JURIST] The Somali transitional government [official website] on Tuesday began imposing martial law over areas under the government's control, two weeks after martial law was approved by parliament [JURIST report]. Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi made the announcement late Tuesday after a meeting of African leaders decided against sending an additional 4,000 peacekeeping troops to Somalia. Neighboring Ethiopia has withdrawn its troop support, which some observers believe could encourage Islamic militias seeking to establish Islamic law [JURIST report] and replace the transitional government.

Somalia has endured a lengthy civil war and several rounds of failed peace talks [BBC timeline] since the collapse of its last civil government in 1991. AP has more.

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[JURIST] Former Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon [Knesset profile] was convicted by an Israeli court on Wednesday on charges of sexual misconduct for forcibly kissing an 18-year-old female soldier. The conviction could result in a jail term of up to three years.

Ramon resigned from his position [JURIST report] as Justice Minister in August after the Israeli attorney general decided to bring an indictment against him on the sexual misconduct allegations and was banned from making legal decisions last July when the investigation was launched. Ramon has insisted that the contact was initiated by the female soldier involved and said Wednesday that he would appeal. AP has more. Haaretz has local coverage.

[JURIST] Germany issued arrest warrants for 13 people allegedly involved with the CIA kidnapping of German citizen Khaled el-Masri [JURIST news archive], German Prosecutor Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld said Wednesday. Schmidt-Sommerfeld did not name any of the suspects, however, but told AP that "the personal details contained in the arrest warrants are, according to our current knowledge, aliases of CIA agents." Schmidt-Sommerfeld further told AP that his office was led to the thirteen suspects when a Spanish journalist transferred to them a list of people possibly involved in the kidnapping.

El-Masri has alleged that CIA agents kidnapped him in 2003 in Macedonia and transferred him to Afghanistan, where he was held in a secret prison for five months and subjected to inhumane conditions and coercive interrogation before eventually being released in Albania in 2004 without charge. In November, lawyers for el-Masri argued [JURIST report] before the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that his civil case [ACLU case materials] against the CIA for his alleged extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive] should be reinstated. In October, el-Masri testified before a Spanish judge [JURIST report] as part of an 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]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller [JURIST news archive] testified on Tuesday in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense website; JURIST news archive] concerning conversations Libby had with Miller, during which he allegedly told her about this frustration with the CIA and revealed to her the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Wilson. On cross-examination, defense counsel wanted to ask Miller about other sources with whom she had discussed a separate intelligence leak, but the prosecution argued that she should not have to answer the questions, since they were not specifically relevant to Libby's case. Judge Reggie M. Walton will rule on whether he will admit the line of questioning on Wednesday.

If Miller is called to answer the questions and refuses, she could face charges of perjury, as she did in July of 2005 when she was jailed [JURIST report] after refusing to reveal sources in conjunction with the federal criminal investigation into the leak of Plame's identity. Miller resigned [JURIST report] her post at the Times after her release from the 85-day jail term [JURIST report].

Libby is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice [indictment, PDF; JURIST report] in connection with the CIA leak investigation [JURIST news archive]. The New York Times has more.