In Wednesday's human rights news, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and Afghans for Civil Society have expressed concerns that Taliban guerillas' use of bombs and suicide attacks in rural areas might prevent villagers from voting in the upcoming summer elections. The New York Times has more.... In Egypt, various human rights organizations have refused to cooperate with the recently established state Council for Human Rights. The organizations have appealed to the government to end Egypt's 1981 emergency law asserting that it undermines the Council's credibility. ArabicNews has more.

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In Wednesday's federal courts roundup, the US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling that ordered the State of Nebraska to pay $151 million for blocking a waste dump for low level radioacitve waste in the state. The state has indicated that it will likely appeal the ruling. AP has the full story. Read the opinion here [PDF].... Also in the US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and as reported earlier on JURIST's Paper Chase, the city of Plattsmouth, Nebraska has been ordered to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a city park.... Judge David Ezra of the US District Court, District of Hawaii has indicated that he will likely dismiss a lawsuit against the Federal Reserve Board challenging the merger of Bank of America with FleetBoston for lack of jurisdiction. AP reports that Ezra indicated that he believed the suit to have merit, and urged the Board to consider the concerns of the plaintiffs that Bank of America has not met its lending commitments.... As reported earlier on JURIST's Paper Chase, the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the media should have been given access to the jury selection process in the Martha Stewart trial, contrary to the original decision of presiding judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum of the US District Court, Southern District of New York.

Here's Wednesday's legal news from the US Department of Justice. Missouri's Kansas City Star reports on Attorney General John Ashcroft's remarks on worldwide corruption and its link to terrorism at the Missouri Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting during a visit to his home state. The Attorney General said that corruption "provides sanctuary to the forces of terror, [and aids] the smuggling of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons materials". This was Ashcroft's first trip back to Kansas City since becoming attorney general. Read the text of Ashcroft's comments here... AP reports that an internal FBI report kept secret for three years has recently surfaced which details many agent firings due to misconduct and criminal charges. Between 1986 and 1999, one in 1,000 agents were dismissed by the FBI, averaging about 9 each year. The report, which was conducted by the FBI's Behavioral Sciences and Law Enforcement Ethics unit, also showed that many of these agents were hired despite negative results in their background checks. As of yet, the FBI has not commented on the report.

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In international law news Wednesday, the International Court of Justice has announced the schedule of arguments next Monday and Tuesday for its hearing on the legality of Israel's security fence. Sixteen parties, including Palestine, are scheduled to make presentations to the court. Israel, the US, the EU and Russia have all opted not to present oral arguments, reflecting their view that it is inappropriate for the ICJ to rule on the issue. The ICJ has posted the arguments schedule here; other ICJ materials on the matter can be found here. AFP has more.... As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, the International Committee of the Red Cross has categorized Israel's security fence as contrary to international humanitarian law. In response, an advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister has warned that the ICRC's statement could undermine the organization's neutrality because "the Red Cross seems to be more concerned with the humanitarian aspects of the Palestinians and not so much with that of Israel, Jews and Arabs alike." Australia's ABC News has more.... EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Pedro Solbes has ruled out making changes to the EU's Stability and Growth Pact, saying that "there is no scope and no reason to modify any aspects of the treaty." The SGP has been criticized as imposing unrealistic constraints on growth and economic recovery prospects, and Germany and France have repeatedly failed to honor the pact. Read Solbes' speech here. AFP has the full story.... Following ratification by France, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is set to come into force in May. The treaty bans dangerous pesticides, industrial chemicals and sets forth control measures covering production, import, export, disposal, and use of persistent organic pollutants. The UN News Service has more. Also see this press release from the World Wildlife Fund.

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In Wednesday's tax law news, Champaign Illinois' News-Gazette reports today that the Illinois Dept. of Revenue has ruled that Provena Covenant Medical Center is not a tax-exempt non profit organization. The hospital argues that it provides about $3 million in charity care a year, as well as subsidizing $2 million worth of Medicaid/Medicare costs. The ruling was based on the fact that Illinois case law requires tax-exempt hospitals to provide charitable healthcare for all who need and apply for it, and the hospital's use of collection agencies and even jailing some deliquent patients led its now being liable for $1.1 million in property taxes. Read more here.... Tax-News.com reports that the UK is close to eliminating a tax loophole that allows homeowners to establish a trust and circumvent the country's inheritance tax. Tax professionals in the UK are attacking the Inland Revenue's(IR) decision to end such a loophole because of its effect on the country's elderly population. Additionally, the IR did not follow its usual procedure of a 12 week consultation period, instead the period ended after only 10 weeks. Read more here. For a quick quide to the UK's inheritance tax and how the loophole works see here.

Here is Wednesday's roundup of major legal stories from around the world. In China, Internet dissident Du Daobin was formally arrested on charges of subversion for overstepping his legal rights of criticizing government work and functionaries. Daobin had written 28 internet articles aimed at the overthrow of China's socialist system. BBC has more.... In Italy, police have arrested Giuseppe Morabito, a top leader of the Calabrian Mafia, the country's most notorious organized crime group. The arrest is the second blow in one month to the group, following the police seizure of thousands of kilograms of cocaine in January. BBC has more.... In Ireland, it was announced that a smoking ban in all enclosed work spaces, including pubs, will take effect on March 29. An association of pub and hotel owners vow to challenge the ban in court, alleging that it restricts freedom and will lead to widespread job losses. CNN International has more.

In Wednesday's civil rights news, the ACLU has requested that North Carolina enact a moratorium on executions. The request comes on the heels of the acquittal of Alan Gell, who was wrongfully convicted of murder, as reported earlier today on JURIST's Paper Chase. The North Carolina Senate already approved a measure to place a moratorium on executions, and the House is expected to vote on the measure in May of 2004. Read the ACLU's press release here. Read the North Carolina Legislature's bill here.... The ACLU Drug Policy Litigation Project, along with several other organizations, are opposing an amendment to the US federal spending bill that would cut off funding to local transit authorities who allow advertisements from groups who oppose current anti-marijuana legislation. The drug policy reform groups filed a lawsuit against the US government and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, alleging freedom of speech violations. Read the ACLU press release here.

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One of the approximately 1500 people sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is alleging the recording companies are violating the federal anti-racketeering act (RICO) and extortion laws. Michele Scimeca, via her attorneys, allege the recording companies are forcing people to setting their copyright infringement claims because they "fear" taking large corporations to court. CNET news has more.

In environmental law news for Wednesday, AP reports that an unprecedented alliance between the United Auto Workers union (UAW) and the Sierra Club has formed in response to President Bush's plan to change federal fuel economy standards. The news came today when Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope and UAW president Ron Gettelfinger wrote an editorial article in The New York Times criticizing the plan, which they believe would threaten jobs and increase pollution. The proposed rule change would require a reclassification of vehicle weight categories for light trucks. The measure is intended to decrease the production of lighter vehicles which are alleged to cause safety problems. As it stands, the law allows the auto industry to produce vehicles that fall below the average fuel economy standard as long as they make enough that exceed it... In other news, Reuters notes that an official from American Electric Power (AEP) expects that the US will enact regulations to curb carbon dioxide emissions in spite of pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. Although AEP is the largest burner of coal in the US, chief financial officer Susan Tomasky fully expects that an eventual cap program will be put in place but without Kyoto timeframes. The US is the largest producer of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas associated with global warming.

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Leading Wednesday's law school news is an update to the battle for the future whereabouts of the Dickinson School of Law. School officials and alumni have disagreed sharply on whether to keep the school in Carlisle, with its proximity to Harrisburg's state and federal courts, or to relocate it to State College, with parent institution Penn State and its promise of a new facility. Penn State President Graham Spanier suggests a two-campus solution in today's Patriot-News that might satisfy all parties. It would move most of the programs to a new structure in State College while retaining certain essential programs in a renovated structure in Carlisle. Read more on the latest in this developing story here.

In other law school news, the Yale Daily News reports today on the experiences of conservative students at Yale Law School, an institution famous for its liberalism and social activism. Many of these self-proclaimed conservatives are finding the comfort of like-minded peers in organizations like the Yale Law School Federalist Society, whose vice-president registers his dissatisfaction with the school's "ultra-liberal and extremely intolerant" student body in the YDN's full story.

WVLT Volunteer TV in Knoxville reports today on the challenges of increasing minority enrollment at the University of Tennessee College of Law. Although the Supreme Court approved the limited consideration of race and ethnicity in its ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger in June 2003, the school is constrained by "a special legal obligation not to discriminate to overcome past discrimination." That obligation follows from a 35-year-old state court case.

Finally, continuing the trend inaugurated in yesterday's law schools brief, a commencement speaker announcement: the Northwestern University School of Law announces that Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) will deliver the main address at the school's graduation convocation on May 16. Biden, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, holds a law degree from the Syracuse University College of Law and teaches a seminar on constitutional law at the Widener University School of Law.

In cyberspace law news Wednesday, Linux vendor Lindows.com has changed its name in several European countries to Lin---s, pronounced "Lindash," following court orders barring the "Lindows" name. An Amsterdam District Court judge ruled in late January that Lindows.com's use of the term violated the branding laws for Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The judge held that Lindows looks too much like Microsoft's Windows. Microsoft has insisted several times that its pursuit of Lindows is about only the Lindows name, and not about its competing operating system. Microsoft is also engaged with Lindows in a trademark dispute in US federal court. Two weeks ago, a district court in Seattle held that a jury could consider whether Windows was a generic term for trademark purposes...The RIAA has filed suit against 531 more individual file-sharers using the "John Doe" method of identifying defendants by IP address rather than by name. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticized the "John Doe" method, saying that the courts should require the RIAA to sue people individually in their home jurisdictions, and with proper notice.

A Florida grand jury has returned an indictment against a 14-year-old boy accused of murdering a classmate at his Miami area high school. The indictment charges Michael Hernandez as an adult, and if he is convicted of the crime he could receive life imprisonment without a possibility of parole as his punishment. Florida has a recent history of prosecuting juveniles as adults, and some state officials feel this is a dangerous trend that must be stopped. NBC 6-TV in Miami has more.

In Wednesday's criminal law and punishment news, AP reports that Alan Gell, a North Carolina man removed from death-row last year because prosecutors withheld material evidence in his murder trial, has been acquitted of the crime in a second trial. Read the North Carolina Supreme Court's decision to affirm Gell's conviction and sentence in 2000 here. A Newsobserver.com story describing Gell's removal from death-row in February, 2003 can be found here.... A Michigan state Representative is planning to introduce a measure that would let voters decide whether the state should adopt capital punishment for first-degree murder. Currently, Michigan law punishes first-degree murder with a mandatory life sentence without the possibility for parole. AP has more.... Lastly, Texas executed its seventh death-row inmate this year on Tuesday, according to AP. A breakdown of executions per state in 2004 can be found here.

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In Wednesday's corporations and securities law news, Walt Disney has acquired the Muppets and "Bear in the Big Blue House" properties from the Jim Henson Co. reportedly for $60 million in cash plus ongoing revenue participation for Henson's heirs. Read the Disney release announcing the deal here. Reuters has more.... The SEC has started a second inquiry into Massachusetts Financial Services Co. (MFS) for allegedly paying Morgan Stanley and other brokerages for preferred marketing of its funds. Just this month MFS settled an earlier probe by paying $351 million in penalties. The Boston Business Journal has more.... Franklin Resources, one of the nation's largest mutual fund companies, announced the SEC is recommending taking civil action against co-chief executive officer Gregory Johnson as part of an improper mutual fund trading probe. Franklin who feels these charges are unwarranted also announced the SEC is looking into other trading violations at the company. The San Francisco Chronicle has more.... In other Franklin news, the company has announced that the trading at question in a recent complaint filed by Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin harmed no one and that the company has rejected over $3 billion in assets from market timing trades. AP has more.... A federal grand jury is investigating pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb for potential violations in its accounting practices. AP has more.... As reported earlier today in JURIST's Paper Chase, a US administrative law judge threw out antitrust charges against technology company Rambus. The court ruled against the FTC who charged that Rambus had tried to amend patents in order to claim royalties from the world's top memory chip makers. Read the Rambus press release here. The Financial Times has more.... The case between Hollinger International and former CEO Conrad Black began in Delaware with the company saying Black took several large payments without authorization. Also at stake in the trial is whether Black can sell his majority stock in the company without consulting minority shareholders and undermining other potential deals. BBC has more.

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Responding to a reporter's question on the thousands of same-sex marriages performed over the last few days in San Francisco and the recent Massachusetts court ruling favoring the legalization of gay marriage, President Bush Wednesday reinterated his belief that the traditional definition of marriage should not be changed and should not be a matter for the courts:

I strongly believe that marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman. I am troubled by activist judges who are defining marriage. I have watched carefully what's happened in San Francisco, where licenses were being issued even though the law states otherwise. I have consistently stated that if -- I'll support law to protect marriage between a man and a woman. And obviously these events are influencing my decision.

The White House has posted a transcript of the President's remarks here

The US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that a monument to the Ten Commandments in a city park in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, must be removed as it "conveys a message that Christianity and Judaism are favored religions." The monument had been donated to the city in 1965 by the Plattsmouth chapter of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, which was at that time conducting a movie-inspired campaign to place such markers in public places across the United States. The suit to remove it was filed by the ACLU on behalf of an athiest. Read the opinion here. AP has more.

AP reports today that five top specialist firms on the New York Stock Exchange have tentatively agreed to a $240 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations of "front-running," Wall Street parlance for profit-skimming. The profit-skimming scandal, broken last October, has renewed calls for the NYSE to automate its archaic specialist system, whereby specialist firms act as auctioneers on the NYSE floor for specific stocks. The five firms' agreement now awaits full SEC approval.

America Online has filed a civil suit in the US District Court of Florida against four Floridians it accuses of spamming the e-mail inboxes of AOL members. According to AOL, the "Sunshine State spammers" have barraged members with more than 35 million unsolicited messages in the last several years, with the help of a specially designed bank of e-mail-generating servers in an office suite in Ocoee, Florida. Read the AOL press release on the lawsuit here. CNET notes that Florida is "something of a hotbed for spam-related activity, with the Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) identifying three of the world's top 10 known spammers as residing in the state...." It also briefly summarizes a similar suit filed that EarthLink has filed in the US District Court in Atlanta against a group of "Alabama spammers." Under federal law, spamming violates the twice-amended Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

A US Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled Wednesday morning that media should have been given access to the jury selection process in the Martha Stewart trial, contrary to the original decision of presiding judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum. The court said that there was nothing in Judge Cedarbaum's finding, "other than perhaps the degree of media coverage, that differentiates this case from any other high-profile prosecution," and said that "the mere fact that the suit has been the subject of intense media coverage is not, however, sufficient to justify closure." The court went on to note that "to hold otherwise would render the First Amendment right of access meaningless." According to US Supreme Court precedent, jury selection should be closed to the media only in extraordinary circumstances when "closure is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest." Acknowledging that its ruling wouldn't make a difference in the Stewart trial itself, the court said that the issues would likely arise in future trials and were too important to overlook. Read the opinion here [PDF]. AP has the full story.

In family law news for Wednesday, AP reports that a Florida House panel has passed a ballot measure that would require parents be told if their adolescent daughter was seeking an abortion. The proposed bill would amend the Florida Constitution by adding a "parental rights" provison, which would provide that the privacy rights of minor children could not limit "the rights and authoriy of parents or legal gaurdians." The bill must now pass both the House and the Senate by three-fifths majorities before going to state voters in November. AP has more.

A new UN report by Christine Chanet, a French judge and Personal Representative for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, raises new concerns over human rights in Cuba, saying that there has been an "unprecedented wave of repression" of political dissidents and that prison conditions are very physically and psychologically trying. Chanet is also critical of last year's execution of three people accused of hijacking a ferry despite Cuba's moratorium on the death penalty. The report will be considered by the Commission on Human Rights, which will convene its annual meeting in March. Florida's Sun-Sentinel has the full story. Chanet's report on the human rights situation in Cuba is currently available in French here [PDF]. The UN News Service has more.

Hearings in former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia were cancelled again Wednesday due to Milosevic's ill health. The prosecution had been expected to wrap up its case tomorrow after calling over 290 witnesses. Reuters has the full story. Read the ICTY press release on today's delay in proceedings.

US District Judge John Woodcock Tuesday upheld a Maine statute, the first of its kind in the nation, that requires automakers to pay for the removal of car switches that contain mercury before the cars are junked for metal reclamation. His ruling that the law was constitutional contrary to the claims of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers paves the way for the adoption of similar laws in other states - Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Minnesota are already considering legislation. Read the opinion here [PDF]. See the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s original report on mercury in vehicles that gave rise to the law. The Portland Press-Herald has more.

US District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum ruled yesterday that the prosecution in the ongoing Martha Stewart stock trading trial could not enter as evidence of conspiracy a voice mail Stewart left for her broker Peter Bacanovic the day she was first interviewed by government officials working on the ImClone investigation. Judge Cederbaum said that it "isn't evidence of anything, other than that they talked to each other sometimes." She had earlier limited the prosecution's ability to argue about two other phone calls between Stewart and Bacanovic on the day Stewart learned federal authorities wanted to talk to her. AP has more.

The Danish government has introduced new immigration laws that would make it harder for Muslim clerics - or leaders of the other religious faiths - to enter Denmark to take up residence. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that it had hitherto been "too easy" for foreign missionaries to come to live in Denmark, which is 4/5s Lutheran; the government is concerned that allowing in such leaders would help establish and sustain religious-based communities that would not assimilate to the Danish way of life. The Danish government has released this brief statement in English on its official website. The London Times has more.

Pointing to a punctuation error in its proposed court order, the California judge hearing the case of a second conservative group - the Proposition 22 Legal Defense Fund - seeking an injunction against San Francisco's gay marriages ruled Tuesday afternoon that he could not do anything until the error was corrected, and gave the city until March 29 to properly muster its own arguments in defense of its actions. He did say, however, that he would probably find for the plaintiffs eventually. In the absence of a stay from him or from the other California judge who earlier in the day had put off until Friday any ruling on the complaint before him (as reported yesterday on JURIST's Paper Chase), gay marriages in San Francisco will continue. Watching from the political sidelines, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a brief statement calling on San Francisco to follow California state law on marriage and encouraging the courts to act quickly. AP has more.

In a statement issued Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said that the controversial Israeli security fence (official website here), now the sibject of litigation before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, is contrary to international humanitarian law (IHL) "in as far as its route deviates from the "Green Line" into occupied territory":

the Barrier deprives thousands of Palestinian residents of adequate access to basic services such as water, health care and education, as well as sources of income such as agriculture and other forms of employment. The Palestinian communities situated between the "Green Line" and the Barrier are effectively cut off from the Palestinian society to which they belong... The problems affecting the Palestinian population in their daily lives clearly demonstrate that it runs counter to Israel's obligation under IHL to ensure the humane treatment and well-being of the civilian population living under its occupation. The measures taken by the Israeli authorities linked to the construction of the Barrier in occupied territory go far beyond what is permissible for an occupying power under IHL.

Read the full ICRC statement here.

A federal administrative judge Tuesday dismissed an antitrust lawsuit brought by the FTC against Rambus, a major microchip design company. The FTC had accused Rambus of fraud and anti-competitive behavior for attempting to patent technologies it had advanced as industry standards. Read the original FTC complaint here. In the wake of the ruling, the full text of which will not be publicly released until Monday because in camera material needs to be edited out, Rambus stands to collect hundreds of millions of dollars worth of royalties from chip manufacturers using its designs. Rambus has issued this press release on the decision; an FTC press release is here. The San Jose Mercury News has more.

In Wednesday's US law and business press, the Legal Times reports that the US Supreme Court will decide whether to hear two cases involving a dispute over an errant shipment of Honduran lobsters into Alabama.... In a story recently reported on JURIST'S Paper Chase, last week a CA lawyer failed to appear for argument before the CA Supreme Court. The Recorder reports that the lawyer in question has accused his former boss of lying to the court about his firm's failure to appear.... The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that Independence Blue Cross and Chester County Hospital have settled an anti-competition lawsuit filed by the hospital nearly two years ago.... The ABA Journal reports that the ABA House of Delegates has approved a resolution opposing any federal measure that would pre-empt states from defining marriage.... FindLaw's Writ has Columbia law professor Michael C. Dorf's commentary on reasons to oppose or support a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage.

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On February 18, 1970, the jury rendered its verdicts in the trial of the Chicago Seven, charged in connection with violence that had erupted at the 1968 Democratic Convention. The jury acquitted all defendants on conspiracy, while finding five guilty of intent to incite a riot while crossing state lines. Learn more on JURIST about the trial of the Chicago Seven from Douglas Linder of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.