Author: Sarah Miley

[JURIST] US President Barack Obama [official website] signed an executive order [text] on Friday establishing an independent commission [White House weekly address] to investigate offshore drilling and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico [BBC backgrounder]. The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling will be charged with identifying the causes of the BP oil spill and developing options to mitigate future occurrences through laws, regulations and agency reform. The commission will be comprised of a maximum of seven bipartisan members with experience in relevant fields such as science, engineering and the oil and gas industry. The order outlined how the investigation will be administered:

The Commission shall hold public hearings and shall request information including relevant documents from Federal, State, and local officials, nongovernmental organizations, private entities, scientific institutions, industry and workforce representatives, communities, and others affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, as necessary to carry out its mission…The heads of executive departments and agencies, to the extent permitted by law and consistent with their ongoing activities in response to the oil spill, shall provide the Commission such information and cooperation as it may require for purposes of carrying out its mission…In carrying out its mission, the Commission shall be informed by, and shall strive to avoid duplicating, the analyses and investigations undertaken by other governmental, nongovernmental, and independent entities.

The US Department of Justice [official website] will work in tandem with the commission to make sure
the investigation does not interfere with any ongoing investigations, law enforcement activities, or cost-recovery efforts arising out of the BP explosion and subsequent oil spill. The findings will be compiled and delivered to Obama within 60 says of the commission’s first meeting.

Criminal and civil actions have been mounting against BP as evidence of the oil giant’s lack of proper compliance with regulations has mounted. Earlier this week, DC-based consumer advocacy organization Food and Water Watch (FWW) [advocacy website] filed suit [JURIST report] in a US district court against the US Department of Interior (DOI) and the Minerals Management Service (MMS) [official websites] for an injunction to halt drilling at the BP Atlantis Facility [corporate website], another BP Gulf of Mexico site. The Obama administration has asked DOI Secretary Kenneth Salazar [official profile] to conduct a “top-to-bottom” reform of the MMS [speech text] and ordered immediate inspections of all deep water operations in the Gulf. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was a result of an oil well blowout that caused an explosion 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf. The amount of oil spilled into the Gulf is part of an ongoing debate but the resulting oil slick has covered at least 2,500 square miles. The White House is keeping a daily chronology of events [text].

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [official website] has expressed concern [press release] about the treatment of anti-government protesters detained during Thailand’s latest round of political violence [JURIST news archive]. The group is chiding the Thai government for enacting an emergency decree giving Thai security forces broad power to arrest individuals without formal charges and hold them in secret detention. The decree, which lacks judicial oversight, also prevents detainees from having access to legal counsel or family members. HRW released the statement Thursday after security forces dispersed thousands of anti-government protesters known as red shirts [BBC backgrounder] from Bangkok’s main commercial district and arrested several of the group’s leaders. HRW acting Asia Director Elaine Pearson [official profile] said:

This terrible crisis is no excuse for mistreating detained protesters or holding them in secret detention. Those who committed crimes should be properly charged, but all should be treated according to international human rights standards and due process of law…Secret detention sites and unaccountable officials are a recipe for human rights abuses. Those arrested should be promptly brought before a judge and charged with a criminal offense or released.

HRW labeled Thailand’s emergency decree “draconian,” and alleged that the isolation tactics being used by the government greatly increased the risk of “disappearances,” torture, and other human rights abuses.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva [official profile; JURIST news archive] on Friday promised an independent investigation [JURIST report] into the recent clashes between security forces and the red shirts, many of whom support ousted [JURIST report] prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], removed from power in a 2006 military coup. Abhisit discussed plans for reconciliation aimed at helping the country heal after the nearly two month-long conflict in Bangkok, which has left more than 80 dead. He pledged that due process of law would play an important role in the reconciliation, and that all people would be encouraged to participate in the democratic process. During their protests, the red shirts demanded that Abhisit resign and called for new elections. A member of Abhisit’s cabinet has said, however, that new elections will not be held [CBC report] until the situation in the country had stabilized. The Thai government implemented a curfew [JURIST report] in Bangkok and other areas of the country on Wednesday in response to violence that erupted when the leader of the red shirts announced an end to the protests. The curfew remains in effect as the government tries to maintain order.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Friday in Al Maqaleh v. Gates that detainees held at Bagram Air Force Base [official website; JURIST news archive] in Afghanistan cannot bring habeas corpus challenges in US courts. The circuit court reversed the district court’s ruling, which allowed habeas corpus challenges [JURIST report] by three Bagram detainees pursuant to the Supreme Court’s test in Boumediene v. Bush [opinion, PDF; JURIST report]. Chief Judge Sentelle, delivering the opinion of the three-judge panel, stated that the district court underestimated the significance of Bagram being located in an area of armed conflict, which differentiates the defendants’ jurisdictional status from those detained at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. The court held that the current case was more comparable to Johnson v. Eisentrager [opinion text], where the Supreme Court held that US courts had no jurisdiction over war criminals held in a US-administered German prison. Irrespective of where the petitioner was captured, jurisdiction is decided by the level of control the US maintains over the detention facility:

While it is true that the United States holds a leasehold interest in Bagram, and held a leasehold interest in Guantanamo, the surrounding circumstances are hardly the same. The United States has maintained its total control of Guantanamo Bay for over a century, even in the face of a hostile government maintaining de jure sovereignty over the property. In Bagram, while the United States has options as to duration of the lease agreement, there is no indication of any intent to occupy the base with permanence, nor is there hostility on the part of the country. Therefore, the notion that de facto sovereignty extends to Bagram is no more real than would have been the same claim with respect to Landsberg in the Eisentrager case. While it is certainly realistic to assert that the United States has de facto sovereignty over Guantanamo, the same simply is not true with respect to Bagram. Though the site of detention analysis weighs in favor of the United States and against the petitioners, it is not determinative.

The circuit court acknowledged that prohibiting jurisdiction on these grounds may lead to military officials manipulating the system by transferring detainees to Bagram who would otherwise be placed in alternative facilities, but stated that there was no evidence of purposeful manipulation in the cases of the three defendants. This statement would seemingly allow additional suits to be filed if evidence of jurisdictional tampering is apparent.

Last June, Judge John Bates of the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] granted a government motion [JURIST reports] to certify and suspend his earlier ruling, which allowed the challenges to proceed in the Maqaleh case. The certification allowed the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to seek interlocutory appeal from the DC Circuit. The DC district court has been the venue for many habeas challenges, especially for Guantanamo detainees suspected of involvement with terrorism. In April, Judge Thomas Hogan dismissed as moot [JURIST report] 105 habeas corpus petitions of non-citizen former Guantanamo Bay detainees no longer in US custody. Hogan wrote that in deciding the case, the court was answering one of the questions left open by Boumediene: “what happens to a Guantanamo detainee’s habeas claim once he is transferred or released.” In March, a judge ordered the release [JURIST report] of a Guantanamo detainee who had been accused of planning the 9/11 [JURIST news archive] terrorist attacks. Mohamedou Ould Slahi [NYT materials], a Mauritanian who has been in US custody for over seven years, brought a habeas corpus petition, claiming that he had been tortured in prison and had made confessions under duress.

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [official website] announced Friday that it has acquired new evidence to support allegations of wartime abuses [press release] against civilians by both the government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) [JURIST news archive] during the final months of the Sri Lankan civil war [JURIST news archive]. HRW examined more than 200 photographs taken during the last months of the civil war, which ended one year ago, and discovered several photos depicting human rights violations, including a five-photo array of an LTTE loyalist allegedly being executed by government combatants and a deceased woman in an LTTE uniform whose corpse appeared to be sexually abused or mutilated. HRW holds that this fresh evidence further demonstrates the need for an independent investigation into war crimes violations. A committee established by the Sri Lankan government in November to investigate the abuse has yet to report any findings. The HRW claims that Sri Lanka has a long history of setting up ad hoc commissions to deflect international scrutiny, but the intended goals rarely come to fruition.

Sri Lanka has faced numerous allegations of human rights violations originating from incidents that took place during the final months of the civil war. On Monday, the International Crisis Group (ICG) [official website] accused Sri Lankan security forces of war crimes, claiming that the violence of the 30-year civil war, which ended one year ago this month, escalated in January 2009 leaving thousands more dead than projected by the UN. The ICG went on to state that it had acquired enough evidence supporting allegations of shelling civilians, hospitals, and environmental facilities to warrant a independent inquiry by the UN on war crimes in Sri Lanka during the law months of the civil war. In March, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] reaffirmed his plan to set up a UN panel [JURIST report] to investigate allegations of human rights violations during the civil war. Earlier that month, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa [official profile] rejected [JURIST report] Ban’s plan to appoint a panel of experts to look into alleged rights abuses in the island nation’s civil war, saying it “is totally uncalled for and unwarranted.”

[JURIST] UK Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Secretary William Hague [official profile] said Friday that the UK will launch an investigation into allegations that overseas UK operatives were complicit in torture. Hague stated that the new coalition government will initiate a judge-led inquiry into the allegations, but no details were outlined in the legislative program [text, PDF] published Thursday by Prime Minister David Cameron [official profile]. In an interview [text] with the BBC, Hague stated:

We have said again in the coalition agreement that we want a judge-led inquiry. … We will be setting out in the not-too-distant future what we are going to do about the allegations that have been made about complicity in torture. … So will there be an inquiry of some form? Yes, both parties in the coalition said they wanted that. Now what we’re working on is what form that should take.

At least 12 men have filed lawsuits against the UK claiming the government knew or should have known about the torture the men experienced overseas.

Earlier this month, the England and Wales Court of Appeal [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that state intelligence agencies cannot use secret evidence in their defense against abuse accusations by Binyam Mohamed [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and several other UK residents who were held at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. The judgment overturned a November ruling [JURIST report] of a UK high court, which held that defendants MI5 and MI6 [official websites] could utilize a “closed material procedure” that would allow them to rely on certain evidence without disclosing it to opposing counsel or committing it to the public record. The procedure, typically employed in criminal proceedings, is designed to allow concealment of evidence where disclosure would cause “real harm to the public interest.” In February, the England and Wales Court of Appeal ruled [JURIST report] that the government must disclose several paragraphs [text] detailing the allegations of Mohamed’s mistreatment that were previously omitted from an earlier ruling in his criminal trial. Mohamed was returned to the UK in 2009, four months after charges against him were dismissed [JURIST reports]. He was held at Guantanamo Bay for four years on suspicion of conspiracy to commit terrorism [JURIST report].

[JURIST] Four suspected members of armed Basque separatist group ETA [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] were arrested [press release, in Spanish] Thursday in France, including suspected ETA leader Mikel Kabikoitz Carrera Sarobe. The officers raided a residential block of the French city of Bayonne and arrested Sarobe along with two Spanish accomplices. Sarobe, a Spanish national, is alleged to be the military commander of the ETA and is the most wanted criminal in Spain, according to the Department of Interior [official website, in Spanish]. One detained accomplice was identified as Arkaitz Aguirregabiria del Barrio, who is deemed to be ETA’s second in command and is wanted in France for the shooting of a police officer in March. ETA is listed as a banned terrorist group by the European Union and has been held responsible for more than 800 deaths over the past 40 years.

Spain and France have both made great strides recently in its attempts to limit ETA influence. In March, French prosecutors filed preliminary terrorism charges [JURIST report] against a suspected former leader of the ETA, along with two other people who are believed to be senior members of the group. A judicial source said that the charges against the alleged ETA members stem from preparations to commit a terrorist act, including theft, forgery, and illegal arms charges. That same month, the Spanish National Court sentenced [JURIST report] former Basque separatist party leader Arnaldo Otegi to two years in prison for promoting terrorism in a speech he gave. In January, Spanish judge Fernando Grande-Marlaska ruled [JURIST report] that ETA had tried three times to assassinate former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar in 2001 but had failed. Grande-Marlaska detailed the three assassination attempts [El Pais report, in Spanish] as part of a description of the alleged crimes of ETA leader Pedro Maria Olano Zabala, who was arrested in the Basque region earlier that month.

[JURIST] The US Department of Defense [official website] announced [press release] on Thursday that US Forces-Afghanistan has launched an investigation into allegations that a “small number” of soldiers are responsible for the unlawful deaths of three civilians in Afghanistan. The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command [official website] began the investigation earlier this month after receiving credible information from the soldiers’ unit. No charges have yet been filed against the soldiers suspected in the unlawful deaths, but one soldier has been placed in “pre-trial confinement.” The probe also includes investigation into allegations of illegal drug use, assault and conspiracy.

Collateral damage has been a major issue in both the Afghanistan and Iraq [JURIST news archives] wars. Last month, a military appeals court reversed the conviction [JURIST report] of US Marine Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III for the 2006 killing of an Iraqi civilian, citing lack of a fair trial. Hutchins was serving an 11-year sentence, reduced from 15 years [JURIST report], for his role in the April 2006 kidnapping and murder of Iraqi civilian Hashim Ibrahim Awad in Hamdania [USMC materials; JURIST news archive]. He was convicted [JURIST report] in 2007 of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, making a false official statement, and larceny. Six Marines pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to charges related to their roles in the incident, which involved Awad being removed from his residence and killed, then arranged with a shovel and firearm to appear as if he were planting an improvised explosive device.

[JURIST] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official website] on Wednesday banned all UN employees [UN News Centre report] from using cellular devices while driving in an effort to take the prohibition against cell phone use global. Ban is teaming up with US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, US Ambassador Susan Rice [official profiles], and Jennifer Smith, president and co-founder of a national advocacy group, FocusDriven [advocacy website], to launch a global campaign to improve road safety by ending habits that distract the attention of drivers. Ban addressed reporters in New York, highlighting the danger [remarks] associated with the practice.

Every year, more than 1.2 million people die on the roads around the world, and as many as 50 million others are injured. … Studies indicate that using a mobile phone increases the risk of a crash by about 4 times. And yet in some countries up to 90 percent of people use mobile phones while driving. We must instil [sic] a culture of road safety. A culture in which driving while distracted – on the phone, or text messaging – is unacceptable. … I want every driver in the world to get the message: Texting while driving kills. No SMS is worth SOS. The United Nations is leading by example. That is why I am issuing an administrative instruction aimed at promoting road safety, saving lives and prohibiting all drivers of UN vehicles from texting while driving. I thank the leaders here for being a driving force for road safety. Together, we have a message to all drivers of the world: Don’t let using a mobile for a few seconds make you or others immobile for life.

In March, the UN General Assembly [official website] proclaimed the period from 2011 to 2020 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety [press release] to encourage global efforts to halt or reverse the increasing trend in road traffic deaths and injuries around the world.

Several countries have been enacting cell phone use bans while operating motor vehicles in response to the increase in cell phone related accidents. In October, Ontario enacted a law banning the use of handheld devices [JURIST report] while driving, outlawing text messaging and talking on a cell phone while behind the wheel. Ontario joins other jurisdictions in Canada and the US to pass similar bans including Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador, California, and New York. Earlier this October, US President Barack Obama signed [JURIST report] an executive order [text] making it illegal for federal employees or government contractors to use text messaging while driving. Despite numerous studies showing that drivers using handheld phones are more likely to get into a crash or near crash, some have criticized bans on using technology while driving. Dave McCurdy, CEO of the Auto Alliance [advocacy website], an automobile industry advocacy group, cautioned [Huffington Post op-ed] that increasing restrictions on technology use in automobiles may cross a threshold and hinder more than help. But the Auto Alliance’s official position [press release] supports legislation that bans text messaging while driving.

[JURIST] The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] on Wednesday affirmed the contempt conviction [press release] of Vojislav Seselj [case materials; JURIST news archive], a Serbian politician and former president of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) [BBC backgrounder]. Trial Chamber II found Seselj guilty of contempt [JURIST report] last year for authoring a book revealing pertinent information about several key witnesses and sentenced him to 15 months in prison. The Appeals Chamber denied all eight of Seselj’s grounds of appeal. Seselj’s war crimes trial just resumed in January, after being delayed [JURIST reports] for nearly a year over fears that witnesses were being intimidated. He is currently being tried before Trial Chamber III on 14 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war.

The ICTY had previously stripped Seselj of his right to defend himself after he failed to appear in court, despite an earlier appeals court ruling that he could represent himself [JURIST reports] provided he did not engage in courtroom behavior that “substantially obstruct[ed] the proper and expeditious proceedings in his case.” Seselj is accused of establishing rogue paramilitary units affiliated with the SRS, which are believed to have massacred and otherwise persecuted Croats and other non-Serbs during the Balkan conflict.

[JURIST] The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority [official website] on Wednesday ordered Internet service providers to block [press release] social networking site Facebook [website] in response to a competition created by a group of the website’s members entitled “Draw Muhammad Day.” The PTA issued the order following a decision by the Lahore High Court (LHC) [JURIST news archive] to block the website indefinitely after Pakistan officials learned the competition would take place on May 20. The court also ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [official website] to open an investigation into why the competition was created. The government initially planned only to block access to the group’s Facebook page, but after the LHC decision was issued, the Ministry of Information Technology [official website] immediately blocked the entire website.

Depicting the Prophet Muhammad is considered blasphemous by Muslims, and has been a source of international controversy since 2005 when a Danish newspaper published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a series of cartoons [JURIST news archive]. Earlier this month, a Danish public prosecutor for the Utrecht District Court filed an appeal [JURIST report] against an April ruling [JURIST report] acquitting the Arab European League (AEL) of hate speech charges stemming from posting an inflammatory cartoon on their website insinuating that the Holocaust was fabricated. The court ruled that publishing the cartoon was not a criminal offense because it was intended to be a contribution to public debate regarding a perceived double standard in the distribution of the Danish Muhammad cartoons. The prosecutor is appealing in order to determine if the cartoon was “unnecessarily offensive,” stating that the court failed to rule on this issue. The prosecutor also found fault with the court’s agreement that the cartoon pointed out a double standard, saying that the controversy surrounding the Danish cartoon depicting Muhammad does not equate with the publishing of the AEL’s cartoon. The group depicted in the Muhammad cartoon was a “criminal group,” the prosecutor said, but the Jewish people “still have no share in the above social debate.”

[JURIST] The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] on Wednesday affirmed the acquittal [judgment, PDF] of former Macedonian interior minister Ljube Boskoski [case materials], while upholding the sentence imposed against Macedonian police officer Johan Tarculovski for alleged war crimes. In 2008, Boskoski was found not guilty [JURIST report] of neglecting his responsibility as a superior to punish subordinates who committed crimes during and after a 2001 police raid against ethnic Albanians in the the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Tarculovski, a former police officer in FYROM, was convicted of war crimes for having ordered, planned, and instigated crimes committed against ethnic Albanians during the raid. The Appeals Chamber held that the Trial Chamber was correct in its findings of fact and law against Tarculovski, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that his police force knew or should have known that the victims were taking not active part in the hostilities and that the prominent objective of the raid was to indiscriminately attack ethnic Albanians and their property. Tarculovski will remain in the Tribunal’s Detention Unit pending finalization of arrangements for his transfer to the country where he will serve the rest of his 12-year sentence.

Boskoski and Tarculovski are the only Macedonians to be indicted by the ICTY. The two men jointly went on trial [JURIST report] in 2007 after being charged [amended indictment, PDF; case backgrounder, PDF] with murdering seven ethnic Albanian civilians in the village of Ljuboten [HRW backgrounder] during a 2001 conflict between local ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Macedonian government security forces. Tarculovski was accused of directing the attack on the village and Boskovski was accused of having command and control over the armed forces at the time of the alleged massacre. The two men surrendered [JURIST report] to the ICTY in 2005 after being charged with war crimes. Boskovski has also been in prison for charges relating to the murder of seven immigrants while he was the interior minister in 2002.

[JURIST] Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [official websites] announced in a committee hearing Wednesday that confirmation hearings for US Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan [official profile; JURIST news archive] will begin June 28 [press release]. Leahy’s confirmation schedule mirrors the timelines followed for recent nominations, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The schedule should allow the confirmation hearings to be completed before the senators go on a week-long break in early July. Leahy said:

There is no reason to unduly delay consideration of this nomination. Justice Stevens announced on April 9 that he would be leaving the Court. He noted that “it would be in the best interests of the Court to have [his] successor appointed and confirmed well in advance of the commencement of the Court’s next Term,”; and I wholeheartedly agree with Justice Stevens. That is in the best interests of the Court, and the country.

The Committee’s ranking Republican Jeff Sessions (R-AL) [official website] responded [press release] to Leahy’s announcement requesting that the hearings start after the July 4 recess in order for the senators in order to properly review Kagan’s questionnaire and accompanying documentation. “At this time, it remains to be seen whether the schedule set by the Chairman will be adequate to allow us to meet our important constitutional responsibility to thoroughly review Ms. Kagan’s record on behalf of the American people.” Leahy’s proposed timetable will put Senate on track to meet the president’s goal of confirming Kagan by the time the court begins its new session in the fall.

On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee released [JURIST report] a bipartisan questionnaire [text, PDF] submitted by Kagan regarding her prior experience, financial status, potential conflicts of interest, and various other details of her past. The majority of the questionnaire is made up of various cases handled during her tenure with the solicitor general’s office, which is responsible not only for litigation before the Supreme Court, but also for deciding which district court rulings will be challenged in the appeals courts. Kagan submitted the questionnaire on Tuesday along with thousands of pages of documentation supporting her responses [materials]. She will return to Washington, DC on Wednesday for individual meetings with senators who will vote on her nomination after the hearings are completed.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] announced Tuesday that the Philadelphia Immigration Court [official website] has ordered the deportation [press release] of former SS guard Anton Geiser to Austria for serving as an armed guard at the Sachsenhausen and the Buchenwald concentration camps during World War II. Geiser, who has been living in southwestern Pennsylvania since 1960, admitted to the allegations in the charging document. The court found that Geiser is removable under the 1978 Holtzman Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act [text] because a visa may not be granted to anyone who was involved in persecutions based on race, religion, or national origin. Assistant US Attorney General Lanny Breuer [official profile] said, “[a]s a Nazi concentration camp guard during World War II, Anton Geiser must be held to account for his role in the persecution of countless men, women and children. The long passage of time will not diminish our resolve to deny refuge to such individuals.” Geiser is currently not in custody and can appeal his case to the Board of Immigration Appeals [official website] in Washington, DC.

In 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit revoked [JURIST report] Geiser’s US citizenship because he had obtained it illegally. The DOJ alleged [complaint] that the US government mistakenly granted him a visa in 1956 and then citizenship in 1962 without knowledge of his affiliation with the Nazi regime. In 2006, a district court judge ordered the revocation [opinion, PDF] of Geiser’s citizenship, writing that it was legally necessary [8 USC s. 1451] because the citizenship was based on a visa he was ineligible to receive [Refugee Relief Act of 1953 s. 14]. The DOJ’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) [official website] handles cases, including Geiser’s, aimed at denaturalizing or deporting former Nazis who participated in wartime persecutions.

[JURIST] The US Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] released a bipartisan questionnaire [text, PDF] on Tuesday submitted by Supreme Court [official website] nominee Elena Kagan [official profile; JURIST news archive] regarding her prior experience, financial status, potential conflicts of interest, and various other details of her past. The majority of the questionnaire is made up of various cases handled during her tenure with the solicitor general’s office, which is responsible not only for litigation before the Supreme Court, but also for deciding which district court rulings will be challenged in the appeals courts. The questionnaire also contains transcripts of past speeches, her achievements as dean of Harvard, and over two decades of writings, including articles from Princeton’s student newspaper, the Daily Princetonian, where she served as a writer and editorial page editor. Kagan submitted the questionnaire on Tuesday along with thousands of pages of documentation supporting her responses [materials]. The writings and speech transcripts were released by the White House [official website] in order for the Senate to gain a better understanding of President Barack Obama’s nominee, whose lack of legal writing has left Republicans and many Democrats questioning her views on key issues. Kagan will return to Washington, DC on Wednesday for individual meetings with senators who will vote on her nomination later this summer.

Obama nominated [JURIST report] Kagan to the Supreme Court last week. If confirmed by the US Senate [official website], Kagan would replace Justice John Paul Stevens [official profile; JURIST news archive] when he retires [JURIST report] at the end of the current term. Obama said [transcript; video] that Kagan “is widely regarded as one of the nation’s foremost legal minds.” Speaking to the press, Kagan described the nomination as an “honor of a lifetime.” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) [official website] congratulated Kagan on her nomination but warned [statement] that the Senate would not “rush to judgment.” If confirmed, Kagan will become the youngest justice and the fourth woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

[JURIST] The UK coalition government will review the country’s Human Rights Act [BBC backgrounder] after two Pakistani terror suspects successfully avoided deportation by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission [official website] due to concerns for their safety. The commission identified both Abid Naseer and Ahmed Faraz Khan as terrorism suspects but concluded that it was not possible for them to be deported to Pakistan, where terrorism suspects face torture or death.The Human Rights Act was created in 1988 to encompass the fundamental rights in the European Convention of Human Rights [text]. Policymakers hope that, by reviewing the act, they can develop a plan of action for ensuring deportees would be treated properly upon returning to their native countries. Since the act does not allow the two suspects to be detained without trial, the two men will most likely be subjected to control orders that would restrict their movement and require them to be under constant watch. Naseer and Khan were two of 10 Pakistani men captured last year in connection with a terrorism plot targeting Manchester and Liverpool.

The Human Rights Act has been a point of contention between liberal and conservative groups in the UK. In 2006, then-prime minister Tony Blair called for an amendment to the act to allow the government greater discretion to protect public safety, while conservative leaders called for the act to be repealed [JURIST reports]. Human Rights Watch [official website] urged the new UK government to continue its support of the act last week in addition to a request for the government to set up a judiciary inquiry [JURIST report] on torture [JURIST news archive] allegations. The rights group claimed that allegations of complicity in the torture of terrorism suspects have badly damaged the nation’s reputation and that steps need to be taken to restore the nation’s reputation as “a nation that respects human rights.”

[JURIST] The International Crisis Group (ICG) [official website] on Monday accused Sri Lankan security forces of war crimes [report text] during the last months of the Sri Lankan civil war [JURIST news archive]. The ICG claims that the violence of the 30-year civil war, which ended one year ago this month, escalated in January 2009 leaving thousands more dead than projected by the UN:

The Sri Lankan security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) repeatedly violated international humanitarian law during the last five months of their 30-year civil war. Although both sides committed atrocities throughout the many years of conflict, the scale and nature of violations particularly worsened from January 2009 to the government’s declaration of victory in May. Evidence gathered by the International Crisis Group suggests that these months saw tens of thousands of Tamil civilian men, women, children and the elderly killed, countless more wounded, and hundreds of thousands deprived of adequate food and medical care, resulting in more deaths. This evidence also provides reasonable grounds to believe the Sri Lankan security forces committed war crimes with top government and military leaders potentially responsible. There is evidence of war crimes committed by the LTTE and its leaders as well, but most of them were killed and will never face justice.

The ICG went on to state that it had acquired enough evidence supporting allegations of shelling civilians, hospitals, and environmental facilities to warrant a independent inquiry by the UN on war crimes in Sri Lanka during the law months of the civil war. The Sri Lanka government denies these allegations and claims that no civilians were killed during the final months of the war. The UN has yet to comment on the report.

In March, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] reaffirmed his plan to set up a UN panel [JURIST report] to investigate allegations of human rights violations during the civil war. Earlier that month, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa [official profile] rejected [press release; JURIST report] Ban’s plan to appoint a panel of experts to look into alleged rights abuses in the island nation’s civil war, saying it “is totally uncalled for and unwarranted.” The ICG report gives further validations to an independent UN inquiry into Sri Lankan war crimes. Sri Lanka has faced numerous allegations of human rights violations originating from incidents that took place during the final months of the civil war by both the government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) [JURIST news archive].

[JURIST] Yemen’s Ministry of Defense [official website, in Arabic] announced Tuesday that a Yemeni court has sentenced six Somali pirates [JURIST news archive] to death and six additional pirates to 10-year jail sentences for the hijacking of a Yemeni oil tanker in April 2009. The convicted pirates must collectively pay 2 million Yemen riyals in compensatory damages to the Aden Refinery [corporate website, in Arabic], which owned the tanker. The refinery will be required to give a portion of the damages to the families of the two Yemeni crewman killed in the hijacking. Defense lawyers have appealed the verdict.

The international community is supporting actions taken against piracy. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) [office website] announced on Wednesday that the island nation of Seychelles will create a UN-supported center [JURIST report] to prosecute suspected pirates. The center will accept and try pirates captured by the European Union Naval Force Somalia (EU NAVFOR) [official website] off the coast of Somalia and surrounding areas. This will be the second such court established for the prosecution of pirates, following only Kenya. Last month, the UN Security Council approved a resolution [JURIST report] calling on member states to criminalize piracy under their domestic laws and urging Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official website] to consider an international tribunal for prosecuting piracy. The Security Council resolution came the same week the UN announced that a trust fund established to combat piracy will be funding five projects [UN News Centre report] aimed at piracy committed in the waters around Somalia.

[JURIST] DC-based consumer advocacy organization Food and Water Watch (FWW) [advocacy website] filed suit [complaint, PDF] in a US district court Monday against the US Department of Interior (DOI) and the Minerals Management Service (MMS) [official websites] for an injunction to halt drilling at the BP Atlantis Facility [corporate website] in the Gulf of Mexico. FWW joined suit with Kenneth Abbott, a former safety contract engineer for BP, claiming that DOI and MMS allowed BP to operate the Atlantis Facility without documented, approved final engineering drawings considered critical to safe operation. FWW and Abbot hold that although federal law requires 100 percent engineer approved “as built” drawings for most platform systems, less then 10 percent of BP’s Atlantis Facility drawings had met these specifications. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas [official website], lists several attempts by both FWW and Abbott to address this safety issues with the DOI and MMS, but no action was taken by either government organization to compel BP to produce the requisite drawings.

The gravity of BP’s conduct has and will continue to have long lasting effect on the environment and public health, and DOI and MMS’s failure to enforce its regulations against BP has only accelerated the time to another BP catastrophe. Accordingly, it is necessary that DOI and MMS be enjoined to temporarily prohibit production at the BP Atlantis Facility in order to protect and prevent further catastrophic destruction, and to further ensure the its regulations are enforced. … [U]nless relief is granted by this Court, a catastrophe is certain to occur at the [facility], which will undoubtedly cause unprecedented, irreparable damages to the environment in and surround the Gulf of Mexico and the general public health.

BP has repeatedly claimed that it has worked with the DOI and MMS to meet the specifications required for the Atlantis Facility, but the allegations against them raise more doubts on how well federal regulators, especially MMS, have been inspecting BP facilities in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion [BBC backgrounder] last month. In response, the Obama administration asked DOI Secretary Kenneth Salazar [official profile] to conduct a “top-to-bottom” reform of the MMS [speech text] and ordered immediate inspections of all deep water operations in the Gulf. Salazar and other federal officials will be questioned on Tuesday by Senate committees on the efficacy of actions taken to prevent the April oil spill.

On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano [official profile] defended [testimony] the federal government’s “all-hands-on-deck” response to the oil spill before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs [official website], stating that the government lacked the resources and expertise to deal with a spill of this magnitude, and must therefore depend on the response of BP to resolve the subsea oil spill. President Barack Obama has announced that he is forming a presidential commission [AP report] to investigate the cause of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, and will be similar to the ones that investigated the Challenger explosion and the nuclear disaster on Three Mile Island. Also on Monday, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works [official website] asked US Attorney General Eric Holder to open an investigation [press release] into potential violations of civil and criminal laws related to the BP oil spill. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was a result of an oil well blowout that the caused an explosion 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf. Eleven platform workers are missing and presumed dead, and 17 others were injured. The amount of oil spilled into the Gulf is part of an ongoing debate [NPR report] and has ranged from 5,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The resulting oil slick has covered at least 2,500 square miles. The White House is keeping a daily chronology of events [text].

[JURIST] A Haitian court on Monday convicted US missionary Laura Silsby of attempting to illegally smuggle 33 Haitian children to the US through the Dominican Republic in the wake of the January 12 earthquake [JURIST news archive]. Silsby was found guilty of irregular travel [JURIST report] and sentenced to time served during judicial proceedings. At the opening of trial proceedings on Thursday, Haitian prosecutors claimed that Silsby knew she was breaking the law [AP report] when she attempted to take the children into the Dominican Republic and requested a six-month prison term [JURIST report]. The court agreed with the prosecution’s allegations, but denied the request for additional prison time. Silsby has been released and is now permitted to leave the country and return home to Idaho.

Silsby was the only one to face trial of a group of 10 missionaries affiliated with the Central Valley Baptist Church [church website] of Idaho and the New Life Children’s Refuge Charity [BBC profile] who were arrested [JURIST report] in January. A Haitian judge ordered the release of eight missionaries in February and then ordered the release of a ninth [JURIST reports] in March. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake caused massive damage to property and infrastructure in Haiti, and the death toll has been estimated at 230,000.

[JURIST] The appeals court for Iraq’s Justice and Accountability Commission on Monday overturned a ban on nine newly elected members of parliament accused of having ties to the banned Baath Party [BBC backgrounder].The ad hoc commission was created to eliminate Iraqi officials with potential connections to regime of Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive], who led the Baath party during his presidency. Eight of the banned candidates were members of the Sunni-backed coalition Iraqiya, which received the plurality of votes in the March 2010 parliamentary elections [CEIP backgrounder; JURIST news archive] by a two-seat margin. The ban by the commission, which is made up predominantly of Shiites, was perceived as a tactic by the Shiite bloc to garner seats from Iraqiya in order to gain the plurality for incumbent Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law [official website] coalition. A spokesperson for Iraqiya praised the decision [Reuters report] of the appeals court and stated that this decision was a victory for the Iraqi judicial system. The court’s decision may mark the end of the election appeals, and the confirmed election results must now be certified by Iraq’s highest court, which will lead to negotiations for the next prime minister.

Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) [official website] announced Sunday that the partial recount of the March parliamentary elections will not alter seat allocations [JURIST report] awarded in accordance with the provisional results. The commission held that the original count showed no signs of fraud or major irregularities [JURIST report], and confirmed the two-seat lead of the the Iraqiya coalition of Iyad Allawi [personal website, in Arabic; Al Jazeera profile] over al-Maliki’s bloc. Last month, an IHEC review panel nullified the votes of 52 candidates for alleged ties to the Baath Party, including two candidates that had won seats in the Iraqi Council of Representatives [official website], at least one of which coming from Iraqiya. In February, an Iraqi appeals panel ruled [JURIST report] that 28 of the 500 candidates previously banned due to allegations of ties to the Baath Party could stand in the election. The initial ban was characterized by the Iraqi government as illegal and was reversed [JURIST reports] when the panel acknowledged that it did not have to rule on all 500 candidates at once. This came as a reversal of a previous decision, where it held that the candidates could stand in the coming elections, but would have to be cleared of the allegations against them before taking office.