France's top court refused Wednesday to allow French citizenship for 10-year-old twin girls born to a surrogate mother in the United States, in a ruling that affirmed France's legal ban on surrogacy.

In a case straddling international legal rights and bioethics, the Court of Cassation ruled a California county went too far by ruling that a French couple are legally the twins' parents.

The ruling exposes the legal limbo that many would-be parents find themselves in because of inconsistencies on surrogacy between countries like the United States, which legally recognizes it, and France, which does not.

Other countries, like Belgium, are largely silent on the subject, leaving the door open to different interpretations and leaving an international legal void in many cases.

Because Sylvie Mennesson was unable to bear children, she and her husband, Dominique, turned to a surrogate mother with his sperm and a donor's egg. The surrogate mother gave birth to the twins in California in 2000, and the girls have U.S. citizenship. Under California's surrogacy rights laws, San Diego County said the Mennessons were the girl's legal parents.

Wednesday's ruling follows a lower court's order that stripped the twins from France's civil registry. Being listed on the civil registry is a requirement for obtaining documents including identity cards or passports.

The International Court of Justice has thrown out a case filed by Georgia accusing Russia and separatist militias of years of ethnic cleansing in two breakaway Georgian provinces that sparked a five-day war in 2008.

In a 10-6 ruling, President Hisashi Owada said Friday that the United Nations' highest court had no jurisdiction in the case because Russia and Georgia had not attempted to negotiate a settlement to their long-running dispute before filing it to the court at the end of the war.

Georgia complained to the court in 2008 that Russian authorities and militias allied to Moscow murdered thousands of ethnic Georgians and displaced some 300,000 people in a two-decade campaign of discrimination in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav will learn Tuesday whether he will go to jail on a rape conviction in a case that has already made history in Israel.

The former head of state is the highest-ranking Israeli official ever to be convicted of a crime. He faces up to 16 years in prison.

His conviction was seen as a victory for the Israeli legal system and for women's rights in a decades-long struggle to chip away at the nation's macho culture, which once permitted political and military leaders great liberties. At the same time, it left some Israelis equally saddened to see a symbol of the state tarnished.

Katsav was convicted in December of two counts of raping an employee when he was tourism minister in 1998. The court also convicted him of sexual harassment against two other women who worked for him when he was president, from 2000 to 2007.

The presidency is a mostly ceremonial position in Israel, traditionally given to elder statesmen as a reward for a lifetime of public service.

Details surfaced in 2006 when Katsav complained that a female employee was trying to blackmail him. The woman went to police with her side of the story, listing a series of alleged sexual assaults. Other women later came forward with other complaints of sexual abuse by Katsav.

The ruling overturned a decision the court had reached in November 2009 in which it said the crucifix could be disturbing to non-Christian or atheist pupils. Led by Italy, several European countries appealed that ruling.

The case originated in Italy, and Friday's final verdict was immediately welcomed in Rome. "The popular sentiment in Europe has won today," said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

All 47 countries that are members of the Council of Europe, the continent's human rights watchdog, will be required to obey the ruling.

The European Court of Human Rights, which is based in Strasbourg, France, said Italian public schools did nothing wrong by hanging crucifixes in their classrooms, in a case that divided Europe's traditional Catholic countries and their more secular neighbors.

Friday's final decision by the court's Grand Chamber said it found no evidence "that the display of such a symbol on classroom walls might have an influence on pupils."

The case was brought by Soile Lautsi, a Finnish-born mother who said public schools in her Italian town refused to remove the Roman Catholic symbols from classrooms. She said the crucifix violates the secular principles the public schools are supposed to uphold.

A Dubai lawyer has appeared in court to deny charges that he stole tens of millions of dollars from former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The lawyer, Khaled al-Muhairy, 45, a partner at a Dubai firm, is charged with breach of trust, attempted fraud and forgery charges. He pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors told the court Thursday that al-Muhairy took money from an escrow account his firm had been hired to manage in 2009.

The attorney is accused of taking $129 million, $97 million of that from Thaksin's sale of the Manchester City football club. He also stole millions to buy a villa and tried to steal millions more for a plane.

Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup and has often used Dubai as a base while in exile.

A British lawyer who had been fighting extradition to the U.S. on charges he helped a former Halliburton Co. subsidiary bribe Nigerian officials will plead guilty in the case, his attorney said Thursday.

Jeffrey Tesler was on his way to the United States and planned to enter a guilty plea in Houston federal court Friday, said his attorney, Bradley Simon.

Tesler, 62, was arrested in February 2009 on charges he helped steer bribe money from Houston-based Kellogg, Brown & Root LLC to Nigerian government officials to win more than $6 billion in construction contracts. A grand jury had indicted Tesler on 11 counts related to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Simon declined to comment on what count or counts Tesler would plead guilty to on Friday or why his client decided to plead guilty.

Tesler, a dual British and Israeli citizen, was arrested in London and had been fighting extradition to the U.S. His attorneys had argued that he should not be extradited because the alleged crimes did not have a substantial link to the U.S. and the passage of time might prevent a fair trial.