[JURIST] Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley [official profile] filed suit [complaint, PDF] Wednesday against the US government, challenging a provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) [text] that allegedly interferes with the state's same-sex marriage law [JURIST report]. Coakley argues that the federal law, which denies federal recognition for same-sex marriages, interferes with the state's right to define and regulate marriage. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts [official website], alleges that the DOMA excludes more than 16,000 married same-sex couples and their families in Massachusetts from rights and protections afforded to other married couples. The suit claims that the federal law violates the US Constitution [materials] by interfering with the state's sovereign authority to define and regulate marriage for its residents, exceeding Congress's legislative authority under the Spending Clause of Article I. The state alleges that § 3 of the federal law creates separate and unequal categories of married individuals, prohibiting same-sex spouses from filing joint federal tax returns, receiving Social Security survivor benefits, guaranteed leave from work for spousal illness and other rights given to married couples of the opposite sex. Coakley addressed the problems [press release] with the federal law:

It is unconstitutional for the federal government to discriminate, as it does because of DOMA's restrictive definition of marriage. It is also unconstitutional for the federal government to decide who is married and to create a system of first- and second-class marriages. The federal government cannot require states, such as Massachusetts, to further the discrimination through federal programs, either. The time has come for this injustice to end.

[JURIST] A court in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday convicted 330 people on terrorism-related charges, according to a report by the state-run Saudi Press Agency [official website]. The Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution brought charges including belonging to a terrorist group, conspiracy to cause mayhem and insecurity, financing terrorism, and treason against people accused of conducting, financing and assisting a series of al Qaeda-linked attacks in 2003. The Special Penal Court sentenced one defendant to death [Al Jazeera report], although the name of the prisoner and the charges against him were not made public. A bureau spokesman said that the defendants could appeal their verdicts.

In October, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz [official website] announced that the kingdom had indicted 991 [Reuters report] suspected al Qaeda members in connection with a series of domestic attacks that killed 164. Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] has been cricital [HRW report] of the Saudi justice system generally, and sought access [HRW request] to the trials to ensure that they complied with international standards.

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] on Wednesday rejected [decision, PDF] an immunity claim [motion, PDF] brought by war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic [ICTY materials; JURIST news archive], citing irrelevance between a possible immunity deal and his trial. The decision to reject the claims follows Karadzic's recent renewal [JURIST report] of his immunity defense in which he claims that war crimes charges against him should be dropped because of an apparent deal he made with former US ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke. Karadzic requested an evidentiary hearing on the claims, maintaining that Holbrooke offered him immunity from prosecution if he voluntary left power in 1996 and that there were two witnesses to the agreement. The court ruled that Karadzic had failed to show that Holbrooke had acted with the authority of the UN Security Council and that there was an abuse of process in the proceedings. Holbrooke has denied the allegations of an immunity deal and prosecutors have found no documents to verify the existence of any such deal. Earlier this year, the appellate chamber of the ICTY upheld a December 2008 ruling [JURIST report], which declared that no immunity deal existed and that even if there was such an agreement, it would not be valid under international law.

In June, the ICTY said that Karadzic's trial would start in late August [JURIST report], estimating that it will conclude in early 2012. His trial is planned to be the tribunal's last. Karadzic has twice refused to enter pleas [JURIST report] to 11 charges against him including genocide, murder, persecution, deportation, and "other inhumane acts," for war crimes allegedly committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. Karadzic was originally indicted [indictment text] by the ICTY in 1995 but had been in hiding under an assumed identity until his arrest last year [JURIST report].

[JURIST] A former prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] told the House Judiciary Committee [official website] Wednesday that the military commission [JURIST news archive] system used to try detained enemy combatants is "broken beyond repair." In testimony [prepared remarks, PDF] at a hearing [materials] before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, US Army Reserve Judge Advocate General Corps [official website], said that although he was a "true believer" when he was detailed to the detention facility, he had come to believe that the commissions undermined "the fundamental values ... upon which this great country was founded." Asked by the subcommittee to address the legal issues surrounding the continuance of the military commission system, Vandeveld said:

We do not need military commissions. They are broken and beyond repair. We do not need indefinite detention, and we do not need a new system of "national security courts." Instead, we should try those whose guilt we can prove while observing "the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples" — in other words, using those long-standing rules of due process required by Article III courts and military courts-martial — and resettle or repatriate those whom we cannot. That is the only solution that is consistent with American values and American law.

[JURIST] The UK House of Lords [official website] on Tuesday rejected a proposed amendment [press release] that would have barred the prosecution of those who go abroad to help others commit assisted suicide. The proposed provision of the Coroners and Justice Bill [materials], which covered "acts not capable of encouraging or assisting suicide," was rejected by a 141-194 vote [vote text] during a line-by-line examination of the bill. Lord Falconer introduced the measure, which called for a waiver of the Suicide Act 1961 [text] if two doctors confirm that the person seeking suicide is terminally ill and competent enough to make a decision and if the person to makes a declaration of intent to seek an assisted suicide abroad. The provision would have amended the Suicide Act to account for such exceptions to the possible 14-year prison sentence imposed by the law for assisting, aiding, abetting, counseling, or procuring an assisted suicide. Dignity in Dying [advocacy website] CEO Sarah Wootton said [press release] that the group would "continue to fight for something that so many others feel very passionately about," calling for allowances "to allow mentally competent, terminally ill adults to make important life decisions for themselves." The House of Lords will continue examining the Coroners and Justice Bill, which was already passed by the House of Commons and contains provisions relating to coroners, criminal law, infanticide, suicide, child pornography, sentencing, legal aid, and other issues.

Physician assisted suicide is a highly contested issue in Europe and other parts of the world. Many Britons have reportedly gone to the Dignitas clinic [website, in German] in Switzerland to obtain assisted suicides. In February, the England and Wales Court of Appeals [official website] refused to clarify the ban on assisted suicide at the request of a British woman [JURIST report] who feared legal repercussions for her husband if he accompanied her to a different country to obtain an assisted suicide. Last year, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown [official website] spoke out against laws allowing assisted suicide [BBC report], saying that he would not create laws that "put pressure on people to end their lives." Also last year, Luxembourg came close to passing a bill [JURIST report] to legalize assisted suicide but the measure was not approved by monarch Grand Duke Henri. Henri's veto prompted the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies to amend the constitution [JURIST report] to eliminate the requirement that the Grand Duke approve of all legislation. In 2006, the House of Lords set aside a bill to legalize assisted suicide following opposition by physician groups [JURIST reports]. Euthanasia was legalized in the Netherlands [BBC report] in 2001, and Belgium followed suit [JURIST report] in 2002.

[JURIST] The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) [official website] on Tuesday announced [press release, PDF] plans to hold a public hearing on a series of regulatory reforms aimed at curbing excessive speculation in energy commodity markets. CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler [official profile] said that the different regulatory treatment given to agriculture commodities, for which the CFTC sets position limits, and energy commodities, for which position limits are set by the exchanges, "deserves thoughtful review." The Commission is considering extending CFTC trade volume limits to energy markets, in an effort to "ensure a fair and transparent price discovery process for all commodities." The commission is also examining whether the bona fide hedging transaction exemption in the Commidity Exchange Act [7 USC § 1 text], should continue to apply to transactions used to hedge purely financial risk, rather than risk "arising from the actual use of the commodity." Gensler said that the proposed reforms were a part of the Commission's "existing authorities to ensure market integrity."

Gensler was confirmed [remarks, PDF] as CFTC Chairman in May, at a time when the administration of US President Barack Obama [official website] is departing [CQ report] from the deregulatory attitude of the George W. Bush [official profile] administration. Last year, the US Senate [official website] rejected a bill [S 3268 text, PDF; materials] designed to amend the Commodity Exchange Act to prevent unchecked energy speculation. The House of Representatives [official website] passed [roll call] its own commodities reform [text, PDF] in September.

[JURIST] Investigators from the UN Human Rights Council [official website] on Tuesday concluded public hearings [press release] into alleged violations of international human rights law during December and January's fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza strip. The head of the four person UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict [official website], former South African Constitutional Court [official profile] judge Richard Goldstone, said that the goal of the hearings "was to show the human side of the suffering; to give a voice to the victims so that they are not lost among statistics." The mission heard from Israeli and Palestinian victims, military experts, and lawyers over four days of hearings in Gaza and Geneva. The mission plans to seek further information from the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas prior to reporting their findings to the Human Rights Council in September.

The mission began [JURIST report] its field operations in Gaza in June, entering Gaza through Egypt's Rafah crossing after Israel announced that it would not cooperate [JURIST report] with the investigation because it doubted the mission's objectivity. Goldstone was appointed to head the investigation [JURIST report] in April, amongst strong criticism [JURIST report] from Israel. The probe follows a previous report [text, PDF; JURIST report], authored by UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk [appointment release], which criticized Israel for failing to take adequate precautions to distinguish between civilians and combatants in their offensives in the region. Both Israel and the US criticized [DOS briefing] the report, calling the rapporteur's views "anything but fair." In April, an internal Israeli military investigation found that war crimes had not been committed [JURIST report] in the offensive despite individual reports by Israeli soldiers [Haaretz report]. Israel has already disputed [JURIST report] a previous report to the UNHRC that accused it of human rights violations.

[JURIST] The UN Security Council [official website] on Tuesday extended the terms for judges from the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) [official websites] until December 31, 2010, or until they complete their cases. In unanimously adopting resolutions 1877 and 1878 [press releases], the Security Council extended the terms for 30 permanent and ad litem ICTY judges and 17 ICTR judges. Additionally, the Council decided that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official website] would be able to appoint additional ad litem judges for existing or new trials. The passage of the resolutions follows briefings last week [press release] by tribunal officials who supported the term extensions. Appellate judges previously had their terms extended to the end of 2010, although the Council decided to review those extensions prior to the end of 2009. The extensions were welcomed by the ICTY [press release].

The tribunals, created by the UN in 1993 and 1994, have been planning to close after completing their caseloads. ICTR President Dennis Byron supported the extensions, affirming that the court is trying to conclude the evidence phase of all trials by the end of the year. ICTY President and presiding appellate judge Patrick Robinson [official profile] has stated that most of the work in both the ICTY and ICTR would be completed by the end of 2012 [JURIST report], earlier than the tribunals' previous estimate of 2015. The trial for Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic [ICTY materials; JURIST news archive] is set to be the ICTY's last, starting in late August with an estimated end date of early 2012.

[JURIST] Britain's Justice Secretary Jack Straw [official profile] on Tuesday proposed expanded laws [press release] that would allow British authorities to prosecute non-resident individuals suspected of war crimes. With the proposed changes, individuals who currently live in the UK, but are not residents, may be prosecuted for war crimes or genocide that took place as long ago as 1991. Such an extension would allow individuals suspected of war crimes in Yugoslavia [RAND backgrounder] and Rwanda [BBC backgrounder] to face charges in the UK. Straw said:

Serious crimes of this nature are best dealt with in the country where the crimes took place. That is where the evidence will be most easily accessible, and where witnesses will be easier to contact. It is also the best solution because witnesses and survivors can see justice being done. Failing that, these crimes should be dealt with by international courts or tribunals where they exist. However, there may be circumstances where these options are not available. We have therefore decided that we should strengthen domestic law in this area.