[JURIST] A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld [opinion, PDF] the majority of an injunction against an Oklahoma anti-illegal immigration law, but did permit the state to enact a provision whereby businesses would have to check their employment roster against a state list of eligible workers through a pilot program. The three-judge panel, sitting at the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit [official website], considered whether to uphold an injunction against the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007 [text, PDF], which required, among other provisions, three sections that were at the heart of the appeal: that businesses use a pilot program to verify the work authorization status of their employees (7B); that firing a US citizen or legal immigrant, while simultaneously employing an immigrant who is in the US unlawfully, be recognized as an unfair trade practice, giving the fired employee a private cause of action (7C); and that contractors verify the immigration status of their independent contractors, or withhold taxes from them (9). The panel found that federal law [8 USC § 1324 materials] preempted sections 7C and 9, but split on whether section 7B was similarly preempted, disagreeing as to whether state mandatory electronic verification of employee status conflicted with voluntary use of a federal database. In a concurrence that found no preemption of section 7B, Judge Kelly wrote:

Though E-verify is voluntary (as of yet) at the national level, it is not reasonable to assume that a mandatory program choice for state public contractors conflicts with Congressional purpose. ... To hold that the State is preempted from requiring such use in these circumstances reads too much into the federal government's provision of choice.

[JURIST] A Chinese police official said Wednesday that three people have been arrested [Xinhua report] for their involvement in the 2008 melamine-tainted milk scandal [JURIST news archive]. The general manager of Lekang Dairy Co., Zhang Wenxue, as well as vice general manager Zhu Shuming and milk powder dealer Ma Shuangling have been arrested and charged with manufacturing and selling food that does not meet hygiene standards. Authorities said that Tong Tianhu, another vice general manager, would face the same charges. Lekang is one of three companies blacklisted [AFP report] by the Ministry of Health as a result of the tainted milk scandal. The arrests come amid concerns that tainted milk has reappeared in several areas.

In December, Beijing police issued a formal arrest warrant [JURIST report] for Zhao Lianhai, a man who organized a website for parents whose children became ill from drinking the tainted, and charged him with picking quarrels and provoking trouble. Chinese courts began hearing [JURIST report] tainted milk suits in late November, after families began filing individual claims. China's Hebei Supreme Court ruled out [JURIST report] the possibility of initiating a class action lawsuit on behalf of the contaminated milk victims in 2008. In November, a Chinese court sentenced [JURIST report] two men to death for their roles in the scandal. A Chinese court in February declared Sanlu Group, the Chinese company that produced the melamine-tainted milk, bankrupt [JURIST report].

[JURIST] The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] on Wednesday reversed [decision, PDF; press release] a Pre-Trial Chamber decision that denied the application for an arrest warrant on genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir [JURIST news archive]. The court emphasized that the reversal was procedural in nature, and did not address the substantive question of whether al-Bashir is responsible for genocide. In its March 2009 decision [JURIST report], the Pre-Trial Chamber required the prosecution to demonstrate al-Bashir's genocidal intent using the "proof by inference" standard. The Appeals Chamber held that the standard used was inappropriate for the arrest warrant phase, which is governed by Article 58 [text] Rome Statute, but declined to enter a finding of genocidal intent or to order the Pre-Trial Chamber to issue a genocide warrant for al-Bashir, as requested [text] by ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile]. The case has now been remanded back to the Pre-Trial Chamber to reconsider whether there was "reasonable grounds to believe" that al-Bashir acted with genocidal intent.

ICC prosecutors appealed the decision [JURIST report] not to charge al-Bashir with genocide in July. The warrant, which charges al-Bashir with seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, has been controversial [JURIST news archive], with Egypt, Sudan, the African Union [JURIST reports] and others calling for the proceedings against al-Bashir to be delayed, and African Union leaders agreeing [JURIST report] not to cooperate with the ruling. Al-Bashir is accused of systematically targeting and purging the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa, three Arabic-speaking ethnic groups, under the pretext of counterinsurgency since 2003.

[JURIST] Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim [official profile, JURIST news archive] entered a plea of not guilty on Wednesday at the start of his sodomy trial. Anwar's defense lawyers are hoping to postpone the trial until the resolution of his appeals of the High Court's refusal to dismiss the sodomy charge and the Federal Court's decision [JURIST reports] not to grant him access to prosecution evidence. Anwar, accused of sodomizing his former aid Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan, contends the trial is part of a government conspiracy to undermine his political career. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

The start of the high-profile trial comes 18 months after Anwar was charged [JURIST report]. Anwar's defense team has repeatedly postponed the trial with attempts to have the case thrown out. Anwar was Malaysia's deputy prime minister until he was fired in 1998 following sodomy charges of which he was initially convicted but later acquitted. He only recently reentered Malaysian politics following the expiration of a ten-year ban [JURIST report] against him for unrelated corruption charges.

[JURIST] The Swiss Federal Council announced [press release] Wednesday that it would accept two Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archives]. The council decided to admit the detainees for humanitarian reasons, despite the Chinese citizenship of both Uighurs and recent warnings [JURIST report] by the Chinese Embassy in Switzerland [official website] that Switzerland would jeopardize relations with China by accepting the detainees. After psychological tests [Reuters report] and further investigation, the Council concluded that the detainees did not pose a security threat. Authorities from the canton of Jura [official website, in French], where the detainees will be housed, announced [press release, in French] Tuesday that it was prepared to issue a residence permit, and the Council has instructed the Federal Office for Migration [official website, in French] to approve the permits.

Of the 22 Uighurs originally detained at Guantanamo Bay, 15 have been relocated. Six Uighurs were transferred to Palau in October, four were sent to Bermuda last June, and five were received by Albania [JURIST reports] in 2006. In December, Albania announced that it would not accept [JURIST report] any more Uighur detainees in an effort to preserve positive relations with China. In November, four Uighurs at Guantanamo filed a petition for certiorari [JURIST report] with the Supreme Court, challenging an appellate ruling that prohibited courts from preventing the transfer of detainees to foreign countries for fear of persecution or torture. China has continued to call for repatriation [JURIST report] of the Uighur detainees that Chinese authorities consider to be part of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) [CFR backgrounder], a militant group that calls for separation from China and which has been a US-designated terrorist group since 2002. The US has previously rejected China's calls to repatriate the Uighurs, citing fear of torture upon their return.

[JURIST] The US House Judiciary Committee [official website] has approved a bill to give the Supreme Court [official website] jurisdiction to review appeals of court-martial decisions. The proposed legislation, known as the Equal Justice for Our Military Act of 2009 [HR 569 text], would modify the high court's jurisdiction so that service members could petition for review if the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces [official website] declines to review the court-martial decision. Current law permits appeal to the Supreme Court only if the case has been heard by the Court of Appeals. The bill is sponsored by Susan Davis (D-CA) [official website], who testified [press release] before the committee:

It is unjust to deny members of our Armed Forces access to our system of justice as they fight to preserve this very system. Under current law, members of the military who are convicted of offenses under the military justice system do not have the legal right to appeal their cases to the U.S. Supreme Court.

[JURIST] The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland [official website, in French] announced [press release] Wednesday that $4.6 million seized from the bank accounts of former Haitian president Jean-Claude Duvalier [BBC backgrounder] must be returned to his family. The decision [judgment, in French], made just hours before the January 12 Haitian earthquake [JURIST news archive], overturned the ruling [JURIST report] of the Federal Criminal Court [official website, in French] that the money should go to aid groups working in Haiti. The lower court rejected the Duvalier family's original claim because it could not prove the money had come from legal means. In overruling the lower court's decision, the Supreme Court cited a statute of limitations on the crimes in the case, which had expired in 2001. The court wrote:

The recovery of assets of deposed dictators encounters various obstacles. States affected by such actions are confronted with particular problems: they may have ambiguous relationships with the deposed regime and often do not have available a proper, effective judiciary which is respectful of human rights, the prosecution of former officials, and the confiscation of their assets. In this context, the conditions imposed by [International Mutual Assistance on Criminal Matters] appear too stringent for these cases. The length of procedures, the difficulties of proof may be - as here - insurmountable obstacles. It is therefore the legislator's responsibility to make the necessary cuts and adjustments to reflect the specifics of these procedures.

[JURIST] The Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) [official website] announced on Tuesday that the country will accept one detainee [press release] from the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] prison. The MFA accepted the detainee as a show of support for US President Barack Obama in his attempt to close the facility. The name of the prisoner was not released for security purposes, but it is believed [RFE/RL report] that the man is a Uzbek citizen who speaks fluent Russian and was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001. The MFA indicated the Latvian government received assurances from the US that no charges were brought against the man, and that he is not a danger to the public.

The Obama administration continues its push to close the Guantanamo Bay facility, despite missing its self-imposed one-year deadline last month. Last week, the US Department of Justice announced that an another Uzbek detainee was transferred to Switzerland [JURIST report]. Also last week, the Yemeni government announced that it will build a rehabilitation center [JURIST report] for detainees. The US had previously stated that it suspended transfers [JURIST report] to Yemen due to security concerns. Latvia joins the growing list of countries that have recently accepted transfers, including Slovakia, Algeria, Afghanistan and Somaliland [JURIST reports].

[JURIST] The US and Russia have reached an agreement for the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty since 1991, official said Tuesday. The landmark treaty, which will replace the recently expired Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty [materials], will include significant reductions [WSJ report] in both the number of deployed nuclear weapons as well as the number of nuclear-delivery systems. US Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller [official profile] is in Paris to finalize the treaty after an agreement in principle was reached last week between US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev [official profiles]. Advocacy groups including the Arms Control Association [advocacy website] support the treaty for not only limiting the number of nuclear weapons, but for also providing methods for each side to moderator the other. The announcement comes as a number of world leaders gather for the 2010 Paris Summit [official website] in the hope of eliminating all nuclear weapons. The treaty could be ready for signing [AP report] by the end of March.

Both US and Russia officials have recently expressed desire to have the treaty in place prior to the upcoming Global Nuclear Security Summit [NTI backgrounder] in April, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference [CAC fact sheet] in May. Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov [official profile] said that nuclear arms reduction negotiations with the US were likely to resume [JURIST report] in early February. Nuclear disarmament between the US and Russia, whose nuclear arsenals comprise 95 percent of the world's nuclear weapons, languished [JURIST report] during the Bush administration. The treaty is considered a key part of easing tensions between the former Cold War rivals, which reached their worst point after the 2008 Georgia conflict [BBC backgrounder]. Last July, Obama and Medvedev agreed [NYT report] to tentative terms for the treaty.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] on Tuesday vacated and remanded [opinion, PDF] the 22-year prison sentence for so-called "millennium bomber" Ahmed Ressam [PBS profile], finding that the district court's failure to follow proper sentencing guidelines resulted in an inappropriately lenient sentence. Ressam, an al Qaeda-trained terrorist, was originally sentenced [JURIST report] in 2005 after being convicted of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve 1999 [CBC timeline]. The court found that the district court failed to properly consider the sentencing guidelines, which would have required a minimum prison sentence of 65 years. The prosecution offered Ressam a reduced sentence in exchange for his cooperation against other terrorist suspects, but, over time, Ressam failed to properly cooperate with US government officials. The court found:

The procedural errors identified in the district court's decision rendered the sentence imposed on Ressam both procedurally and substantively unreasonable. Because the sentence is procedurally flawed, meaningful appellate review is foreclosed. Based upon our review of the record before us, however, it appears that the district court abused its discretion in weighing the relevant factors by giving too much weight to Ressam's cooperation and not enough weight to the other relevant § 3553(a) factors, including the need to protect the public.

[JURIST] UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown [official profile] on Tuesday proposed [transcript] a referendum to reform the nation's election system. Brown has proposed an alternative voting system in which voters would rank candidates in order of preference. He added that the change will not affect the forthcoming elections. Brown said:

If the people decide to back the alternative vote, it also offers voters increased choice with the chance to express preferences for as many of the candidates as they wish. It means that each elected MP will have the chance to be elected with much broader support from their constituency, not just those who picked them as their first choice. In short it offers a system where the British people can, if they so choose, be more confident that their MP truly represents them, while at the same time remaining directly accountable to them.

[JURIST] US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates [official profile] announced [prepared testimony, PDF; press release] on Tuesday the creation of a panel to prepare the Department of Defense (DOD) [official website] for the repeal of the US military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy [10 USC § 654 text; HRC backgrounder]. In a hearing [materials; video] before the US Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) [official website], Gates said that the group will review the potential impact of the repeal in order to produce a plan for implementation by the end of 2010. Gates expressed his support for US President Barack Obama, who last week called for Congress to repeal the policy during his State of the Union Address [JURIST report], but stressed the need for a deliberate process due to the sensitivity of the issue and the military's current involvement in two wars. Gates said:

I fully support the President's decision. The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we best prepare for it. ... I am mindful of the fact, as are you, that unlike the last time this issue was considered by the Congress more than 15 years ago, our military is engaged in two wars that have put troops and their families under considerable stress and strain.