Germany v. Mantelli et al. fr

Country of proceedings: Italy
Context of crimes: World War II (Germany)
Date: 2004 -
Keywords: War crimes (forced labour), immunity (sovereign), reparations

Court Documents (in Italian)
29-05-2008 - Corte di Cassazione: Sentenza No. 14201/2008

Presentation of the case
After the armistice between Italy and the Allied forces in 1943, hundreds of thousands of Italians were deported to Germany and forced to work. In 2004, Giovanni Mantelli and 13 other Italians (or their relatives) deported during the War filed a pecuniary petition before the Tribunal of Turin. The claimants sought material and moral damages for their suffering in the last years of WWII.

In support of their claim, Mantelli and others contended that Germany had recognised its responsibility with the establishment of a foundation with the aim to make payments to former WWII forced labourers, although it did not give satisfactory compensation for each prisoner. Germany claimed that under Article 34 of the 1929 Geneva Convention, it was not obliged to compensate individuals that had been held as “prisoners of war”.

The claimants relied on the Ferrini v. Germany case in their claim, in which the Italian Court of Cassation had already held that crimes of war and crimes against humanity (such as crimes of deportation and slavery) are prohibited by ius cogens.

The Tribunal of Turin was forced to suspend the proceedings after the German Government filed a petition for a preliminary ruling on jurisdiction before the Italian Court of Cassation, asserting that Italian courts had no jurisdiction over the case in light of Italian obligations under the 1947 Treaty of Peace and the 1961 Bilateral Compensation Agreement for Victims of the Nazi Regime. Furthermore, the German Government claimed that Italian courts had no jurisdiction on the basis of the customary international law par in parem non habet jurisdictionem (‘legal persons of equal standing cannot have their disputes settled in the courts of one of them’), according to which foreign states enjoy immunity from civil jurisdiction with regard to acts performed iure imperii (sovereign authority).

Nevertheless, on 29 May 2008 the Italian Court of Cassation ruled that Italian courts have jurisdiction in the case.

Related cases (International Court of Justice)
Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy)