At hastily convened hearings last month, Mexico argued that the United States is defying a 2004 International Court of Justice order to review the cases of 51 Mexicans sentenced to death by state courts.

That order was based on the Hague-based court's finding that the condemned prisoners had been denied the right to help from their consulate following their arrest.

Wednesday's ruling comes less than three weeks before the first of the death row inmates, Jose Medellin, is scheduled for execution by lethal injection in Texas for taking part in the gang rape and murder of two teenage girls 15 years ago.

At last month's hearings, Mexico's chief advocate Juan Manuel Gomez-Robledo told the court the cases had not been systematically reviewed, and the U.S. was "in breach of its international obligations."

John B. Bellinger III, the U.S. legal adviser, said federal government had gone to "extraordinary lengths" to carry out the World Court's directive and to intercede with the state courts.

After the World Court's ruling, President George W. Bush issued a directive to the state courts to abide by the decision and also asked Texas specifically to review Medellin's case ahead of his planned Aug. 5 execution.

The Europa Press news agency said the prosecutors office at the court announced it was backing a case petition brought last month by Brussels-based rights organization Equipo Nizkor on behalf of victims' relatives.

The suspects are John Demjanjuk — an 88-year-old retired auto worker in Ohio — Anton Tittjung, Josias Kumpf and Johann Leprich.

Equipo Nizkor has said the U.S. has been trying for years to deport all four for lying about their Nazi pasts on their immigration papers, but that no country had been willing to take them.

The prosecutors' petition is a nonbinding recommendation. The court's judges will now decide whether to accept the case for study and consider filing charges. A decision could take months.

The filing marked the first time prosecutors at the world's first permanent, global war crimes court have issued charges against a sitting head of state.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked a three-judge panel at the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir to prevent more deaths. Some 2.5 million people have been forced from their homes in Darfur and are still under attack from government-backed janjaweed militia.

"Genocide is a crime of intention — we don't need to wait until these 2.5 million die," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Moreno-Ocampo was undeterred by concern that his indictment against al-Bashir might lead to vengeance against Darfur refugees and the closing of Sudan's doors to relief agencies and possibly peacekeeping troops.

McLaren apologized last December after Ferrari data and documents were found at its chief designer's home, resulting in a $100 million fine for McLaren and disqualification from the 2007 constructors championship.

McLaren said Friday that both sides had agred to bring the dispute to a final conclusion. The exact terms of the deal were not released, but Ferrari said it would donate the payment from McLaren to charity.

The Italian team said it would continue to pursue its case against former Ferrari mechanic Nigel Stepney. Stepney was head of performance development at Ferrari in July 2007 when the scandal broke after a 780-page technical dossier on Ferrari cars was found at the home of McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan.

Stepney and Coughlan were later fired by their teams.

A group called the Mothers of Srebrenica was seeking compensation for the failure of Dutch United Nations troops to prevent the slaughter by Serb forces of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males in the U.N.-declared safe zone.

The Hague District Court said the U.N.'s immunity — which is written into its founding charter — means it cannot be held liable in any country's national court.

"The court's inquiry into a possible conflict between the absolute immunity valid in international law of the U.N. and other standards of international law does not lead to an exception to this immunity," the judges wrote in their ruling.

A ruling lifting the U.N.'s immunity could have had far-reaching implications for the way the world body carries out its peacekeeping operations around the world.

At a hearing last month, Dutch government lawyer Bert Jan Houtzagers said that if a Dutch court decided it had jurisdiction in the case, "any court in any country could do so and that would thwart the viability of the United Nations."

Axel Hagedorn, a lawyer for the victims, said he would appeal Thursday's decision. The case could go to the European Court of Human Rights.

Tuesday's hearing is the first hearing since the Supreme Court ruled last month that detainees can challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts. Officials are expecting hundreds of lawyers and spectators to attend.

Judges will eventually review the government's evidence and decide whether detainees are being lawfully imprisoned. The key issue Tuesday is when that review will begin.

The Justice Department proposes eight weeks to begin filing the evidence. Lawyers for the detainees say it should be faster.