Court Watch
ria. In June 2009, Shell reached a $15.5 million USD settlement agreement with the families of nine Ni- gerian activists who were killed in 1995 after lead- ing protests against the oil company’s presence in the region. Three years earlier, Shell was ordered by a Nigerian court to pay $1.5 billion USD for envi- ronmental damages which harmed the country.
The Okpabi plaintiffs have requested $1 billion USD in compensatory and punitive damages in addition to injunctive orders aimed at both immediate clean- up and ending Shell’s for-profit activity in the area. The court has not yet announced when it will issue a decision on the defendant’s motion or proceed to trial.
*Submitted by Kristen Klump in 1944.
The dispute deals with the question whether the Italian judicial bodies:
A) Infringed German jurisdictional immunity as a sovereign State by allowing civil claims based on violations of international humanitarian law during World War II.
B) Committed a violation of German Sovereignty by declaring Greek judgments concerning similar cases enforceable in Italy.
The Court’s judgment is to be delivered before the end of the year and will have wide-reaching con- sequences for the development of the principle of State Immunity in international law.
ICJ to Decide Dispute Regarding the Principle of the Jurisdictional Immunities of the State
12
On September 16, 2011, the public hearings of the dispute concerning the jurisdictional immunity of a State (Germany v. Italy; Greece intervening) were held before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Peace Palace of the Hague. The case was brought before the Court by an application of Germany in 2008 claiming that Italian tribunals disregarded its immunity as a sovereign State by awarding compensation to a person who during World War II had been deported to Germany to perform forced labor in the armaments industry. The ICJ was requested to declare if Italy can order reparations to individuals for serious violations of international law committed against its citizens by Nazi forces, or if it is barred to do so by Germany’s jurisdictional immunity.
The Parties accepted the Court’s jurisdiction to adjudicate the case according to the terms of the European Convention for the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes of 29 April 1957. The Court also granted Greece permission to intervene as a non-party in the current case, limiting its intervention to the de- cisions of Greek courts in the Distomo massacre
The proceedings arise from the judgment of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation in the Ferrini case in March 2004, when the Court declared that Italy had jurisdiction with regard to a claim by an Italian citizen who had been deported to Germany and subjected to forced labor during World War II. Since that judgment, the flood- gates have been opened. Numerous claims seeking reparation for injuries sustained during events which took place during the German occupation of Italy in Septem- ber 1943, were instigated against Germany before Italian courts. Furthermore, in light of this decision and on account of a similar massacre committed by German military units during their withdrawal from the Greek village of Distomo in 1944 a group of Greek nationals brought their judgments before the Italian Courts in attempt to make them enforce- able. In one instance, Italian judges placed condi- tions on German assets in Italy such as a judicial mortgage inscribed in the land register covering Villa Vigoni, a German Italian center for cultural en- counters.
Though Germany repeatedly claimed that the Ital- ian courts were disregarding its immunity as a sovereign State and the courts lacked jurisdiction with regards to acts of the Third Reich, the highest Italian judicial bodies disagreed, confirming their
ILSA Quarterly » volume 20 » issue 3 » February 2012
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