[JURIST] The French National Assembly [official website, in French] on Tuesday approved an amended version of a controversial internet piracy bill [materials, in French] that would cut off internet access for those who repeatedly illegally download copyrighted material by a vote of 296 to 233. The bill, which was defeated last month when only a few lawmakers were present to vote after it won preliminary parliamentary approval [JURIST reports], is supported by French President Nicholas Sarkozy [official website, in French]. The bill proposes a "three strikes" plan in which any internet user tagged by an ISP as downloading the material would initially receive two warnings, followed by up to a one-year ban for the third offense. Users would be responsible for controlling the use of their own connections, and the High Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet [materials, in French], referred to as "Hadopi" by local media, would use discretion in determining whether to ban offending users. The bill will go before the Senate [official website, in French] on Wednesday, where it is expected to be approved [AP report].

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry [organization website], representing the worldwide recording industry, has welcomed the legislation [press release], while French consumer interest group UFC-Que Choisir [advocacy website, in French] has denounced it [press release, in French] as ineffective. The assembly began considering the bill [JURIST report] in March after it passed through the French senate in October 2008.

[JURIST] The US was elected [press release] to a seat on the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website] for the first time Tuesday. The US received 90 percent of the votes from the UN General Assembly [official website]. In total, 18 countries were elected to the 47-member council responsible for the global promotion of human rights. Countries with questionable human rights records such as China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia [JURIST news archives] were re-elected under criticism [AP report] from human rights groups. Former Czech president Vaclav Havel on Sunday called the elections a "farce" [NYT op-ed], saying the lack of competition - only 20 countries running for 18 seats - "ensur[es] there is no opportunity to choose the best proponents of human rights each region has to offer."

In April, the US State Department [official website] released [press release; JURIST report] its commitments and pledges [text; PDF] to human rights in anticipation of Tuesday's election. The US announced its intent to seek a seat on the council [JURIST report] in early April, hoping to affect more change by working from inside the council than by boycotting the effort. The UNHRC was created [JURIST report] in 2006, at which time the Bush administration declined to seek a Council seat or participate in its proceedings due to a perceived anti-Israeli sentiment by the UNHRC.

[JURIST] Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin [official website; JURIST news archive] said Tuesday that President Dmitry Medvedev and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso [official websites] will discuss a possible peace treaty between the two nations at a G8 summit in Italy in July. Putin spoke at a news conference [Interfax report] following talks with Japanese officials during his visit to Japan [materials]. A dispute over the control of an island chain, known as the Kurils Islands in Russia and the Northern Territories [Japan MOFA materials] in Japan, has led to the absence of a formal peace treaty [JURIST report] ending World War II hostilities between Japan and Russia. Putin said that Russia and Japan would explore every option [Kyodo News report] for resolving the dispute. Putin also said Tuesday that he hopes to resolve the dispute by strengthening economic ties [RIA Novosti report] between the two countries.

In 2007, then-Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said that no formal peace treaty would be concluded [JURIST report] between Japan and Russia until Russia relinquishes control of the islands it has occupied since the end of World War II. Possession of the island chain was first transferred from Russia to Japan in 1855 under a friendship treaty. It remained under Japanese control until Russian troops seized the islands during the last days of World War II, an act in violation of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact [text], signed by both nations on April 13, 1941. Abe and Putin discussed the return of the islands [Kyodo News report] during an economic summit in 2005, but no agreement was reached.

[JURIST] US Nuremberg trials [Yale trial materials] prosecutor Henry King Jr. [academic profile] died [NYT obituary; CWRU press release] Saturday from cancer at the age of 89. King, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law [university website] and a JURIST Forum [website] commentator on war crimes issues, was one of the last three surviving Nuremberg prosecutors, and at 29 was the youngest US prosecutor at Nuremberg at the time of the trials. King was later instrumental in the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website], the new international tribunal that now prosecutes suspected war criminals.

Writing in JURIST in 2006, King denounced [JURIST op-ed] the US military commissions at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archives] as a departure from principles of fair adjudication developed at Nuremberg under the guidance of American chief prosecutor (and later Supreme Court justice) Robert Jackson:

The Military Commissions Act...contains questionable provisions that violate our constitutional arrangements of separation of powers and, arguably, violations of the laws and customs of armed conflict. The stepping away of these legal principles and the loss of our moral high ground is the ultimate challenge to the legacy of Nuremberg so carefully laid down by the principled leadership of Justice Jackson.

With this loss of moral leadership the hard work of a decade of modern international jurisprudence is threatened by politics and a questionable unilateral withdrawal of the world’s only superpower from the norms of international law. With the echo of “the rules have changed” ringing in our ears, America enters the 21st Century under a dark and ominous cloud. The law has been twisted to ensure a type of amnesty for past war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Americans in the “war on terror”, as well as ones that might be committed in the future. Additionally, the role of our courts, a co-equal branch of government, has been carved out of most of the process. Regardless of its constitutionality, the appearance of unfairness is there for the whole world to see.

It would sadden Justice Jackson, and others who were at Nuremberg, to see their government pressing so hard for torture, loss of habeas corpus relief, secret and long term unaccounted for detention, and no judicial involvement in a very questionable legal process. Their hard earned legacy was to try those who committed such acts above.

[JURIST] Alabama's Jefferson County Circuit Court [official website] on Monday began hearing a $2.6 billion derivative lawsuit brought by HealthSouth [corporate website] shareholders against company founder and former CEO Richard Scrushy [defense website; JURIST news archive] for his alleged role in an accounting fraud scheme at the company. The shareholders claim that Scrushy encouraged others to purposefully inflate company profits [Birmingham News report] in order to qualify himself and other executives for bonuses, directed company contracts towards other companies he owned, traded the company's stock based on insider information, and misused other company resources for his own benefit. Lawyers for Scrushy argue that he did not know [Birmingham News report] that profits were being inflated by other executives and denied other allegations of wrongdoing. In 2006, shareholders won an unjust enrichment lawsuit [opinion, PDF] against Scrushy, recovering some of the bonuses paid to him and others based on the erroneous earnings reports.

In 2007, the US Securities and Exchange Commission settled its accounting fraud claims [press release; JURIST report] against Scrushy for $81 million. In 2005 Scrushy was acquitted [JURIST report] of criminal charges of wire and mail fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, and violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in relation to scheme. Scrunchy was, however, convicted in 2006 [JURIST report] of unrelated federal bribery and fraud charges for paying campaign debts of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman [official profile] in exchange for a seat on a state-operated review board that regulates Alabama hospitals. In March, a three judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] upheld [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] that conviction.

[JURIST] Accused Nazi prison guard John Demjanjuk [NNDB profile; JURIST news archive] arrived in Germany Tuesday to face accessory to murder charges [JURIST report] for his alleged involvement at the Sobibor [Death Camps backgrounder] concentration camp after being deported [DOJ press release] by the US. Demjanjuk was deported after exhausting his appeals when US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] Justice John Paul Stevens denied [JURIST report] an application for stay of deportation [text, PDF] last week. Also, on Monday a German court rejected an appeal of a ruling [JURIST report] by a Berlin court that denied a request to block his deportation. Assistant US Attorney General Lanny Breuer said:

The removal to Germany of John Demjanjuk is an historic moment in the federal government’s efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. ... Mr. Demjanjuk, a confirmed former Nazi death camp guard, denied to thousands the very freedoms he enjoyed for far too long in the United States. Now, finally, Mr. Demjanjuk has been held accountable in one small way for his part in one of the most horrific chapters in history.

[JURIST] US District Judge Samuel Kent [official profile] was sentenced Tuesday to 33 months in prison for obstruction of justice [18 USC § 1512(c)(2) text] for lying to a judicial panel [Fifth Circuit materials] investigating sexual harassment allegations against him. Kent was also ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and $6,550 in restitution as part of a plea agreement [text, PDF; JURIST report] in which prosecutors dropped additional charges against Kent and limited the amount of jail time he could have faced. Despite the sentence, Kent technically retains a pension for his judgeship, though US House Judiciary Committee members John Conyers (D-MI) and Lamar Smith (R-TX) [official websites] have said they will seek his impeachment [Houston Chronicle report] if he does not resign and forfeit the pension.

Kent's plea prevented him from becoming the first federal judge to go on trial for sexual harassment. He was indicted [text, PDF] last August, and was initially charged with the sexual harassment of his former case manager. Charges related to the alleged sexual abuse of his secretary were added [ABA Journal report] in January. In 2007, the American Bar Association (ABA) [professional association] adopted new policies reforming the Model Code of Judicial Conduct [JURIST report], which for the first time included prohibitions against sexual harassment, although some advocacy groups believe these changes do not go far enough [AP report].

[JURIST] New York lawyer Mark Dreier pleaded guilty Monday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] to fraud charges for perpetrating a scheme that cost investors more than $400 million. Appearing before Judge Jed Rakoff, Dreier pleaded guilty [WSJ report] to charges of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering, admitting that he knew that what he was doing was illegal. Rakoff said that Dreier was a disgrace to the legal profession [AP report]. Despite arguments from the prosecution that Dreier should be immediately incarcerated, Rakoff allowed Dreier to remain under house arrest at his Manhattan apartment until sentencing in two months. The guilty plea was not pursuant to any plea agreement, and Dreier faces up to life in prison.

Dreier, the founder and managing partner of New York-based law firm Dreier LLP, was arrested [DOJ press release] in New York in December after being arrested and then released in Canada. He was charged with one count of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud. A superseding indictment [DOJ press release] filed in March charged him with one count of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, one count of securities fraud, five counts of wire fraud, and one count of money laundering. Dreier's arrest came shortly before the arrest of financier Bernard Madoff [JURIST report], who was accused of perpetrating a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. Madoff pleaded guilty to securities fraud charges [JURIST report] in March.