JURIST - Paper Chase: Italy high court upholds ruling for Germany on Nazi compensation

[JURIST] The Italian Supreme Court [official website, in Italian] on Wednesday upheld an International Court of Justice (ICJ) [official website] ruling that Germany does not have to compensate Italian victims of Nazi war crimes. The ICJ ruled in favor of Germany [JURIST report] in February. Germany had argued that Italy failed to respect Germany's jurisdictional immunity by (1) allowing civil claims against Germany to be brought in Italian courts; (2) taking "measure of constraint" of German property located in Italy that was used for non-commercial governmental purposes; and (3) declaring judgments against Germany obtained in Greek courts to be enforceable in Italian courts. Wednesday's ruling will effectively nullify a previous judgment that required Germany to compensate the Italian victims of Nazi war crimes.

In September, the ICJ started to hear the oral arguments from Germany and Italy after Germany filed a lawsuit [JURIST reports] against Italy in the ICJ to block Italy from enforcing a 2008 ruling [AGI report, in Italian] that ordered Germany to pay 1 million euros (USD $1.3 million) in damages. Germany had refused the judgment arguing that the judgment was unenforceable under the principle of state immunity and because it already compensated [La Repubblica report, in Italian] Italy under a 1961 agreement.