{"id":14716,"date":"2021-04-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/08-04-2021\/italian-marines-case\/"},"modified":"2021-04-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T00:00:00","slug":"italian-marines-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/uncategorized\/08-04-2021\/italian-marines-case","title":{"rendered":"Italian Marines Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In News<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court is hearing the government\u2019s plea to close criminal proceedings pending in India against two Italian marines accused of killing two fishermen off the coast of Kerala in 2012.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Italian Marine Case<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In Feb 2012, <strong>two Italian Marines Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone<\/strong> on board an Italian oil tanker<strong> \u201cEnrica Lexie\u201d<\/strong> had opened fire on a fishing St.Antony boat and killed two fishermen for mistaking them as pirates.<\/li>\n<li>Italy challenged the arrest of marines before Kerala High Court stating that India has no jurisdiction to try Italian naval marines. Italy provoked <strong>Article 97 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>In 2015 Italy approached the <strong>International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea<\/strong>, an arbitral tribunal under the International Court of Justice and filed an arbitration case under <strong>Annex VII of UNCLOS.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>A tribunal was established by the<strong> International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) <\/strong>under the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The ITLOS ruling of\u00a0 2015 asked\u00a0 Italy and India to suspend all prosecutions in the case.<\/li>\n<li>The Permanent Court of Arbitration heard the case in July 2019.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Present Status<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In a close 3:2 vote, the tribunal ruled that the Italian marines enjoyed diplomatic immunity as Italian state officials under the <strong>United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Taking note of the \u201ccommitment expressed by Italy &#8221; to resume its criminal investigation into the incident, the tribunal said India must cease to exercise its jurisdiction.<\/li>\n<li>In a virtual hearing in August last year, the court had made it clear that it would close the criminal trial of the Marines in India <strong>only after the victims\u2019 families were heard and paid a \u2018hefty\u2019 compensation. <\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The court had asked the government to negotiate an <strong>\u2018adequate\u2019 compensation<\/strong> for the slain fishermen\u2019s families with Italy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cfstatic.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/file_library\/mix_content\/543185766707341600_image.png\" style=\"height:506px; margin-left:150px; margin-right:150px; width:359px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Image Courtesy: <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/italian-marines-case-the-long-road-to-justice-for-keralas-fishermen\/articleshow\/76892393.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ET<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Government\u2019s Response<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Eight months ago, the Centre had informed the apex court about its decision to \u201caccept and abide\u201d by an international tribunal\u2019s award that the Marines should be tried in their native Italy.<\/li>\n<li>The government had explained that India was bound by the award of the arbitral tribunal formed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).<\/li>\n<li>The award was \u201cfinal and without appeal\u201d as India was a party to the UN Convention.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:735px\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color:#fff2cc; width:468.0pt\">\n<p><strong>Permanent Court of Arbitration<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Established in 1899 and has headquarters at the <strong>Hague in the Netherlands<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It is an<strong> intergovernmental organization<\/strong> dedicated to serve the international community in the field of dispute resolution and to facilitate arbitration and other forms of dispute resolution between States.<\/li>\n<li>In real terms it<strong> is not a court<\/strong>, it is an <strong>organizer of arbitral tribunals<\/strong> to resolve conflicts between member states, international organizations, or private parties.<\/li>\n<li>All decisions delivered by it are<strong> called \u201cawards\u201d are binding on all the parties<\/strong> in the dispute and have to be carried out without delay.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is an <strong>international agreement<\/strong> that came into force in 1982. It is also known as the <strong>Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It divides marine areas into <strong>five main zones<\/strong> namely- Internal Waters, Territorial Sea, Contiguous Zone, Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the High Seas.<\/li>\n<li>It provides a <strong>framework for state jurisdiction<\/strong> in maritime spaces. It provides a different legal status to different maritime zones.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/india\/sc-friday-centres-plea-close-cases-italian-marines-killed-indian-fishermen-7262551\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News The Supreme Court is hearing the government\u2019s plea to close criminal proceedings pending in India against two Italian marines accused of killing two fishermen off the coast of Kerala in 2012. Italian Marine Case In Feb 2012, two Italian Marines Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone on board an Italian oil tanker \u201cEnrica Lexie\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[30,34],"class_list":["post-14716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gs-2","tag-india-foreign-relations"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/7311181Current-Affairs.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}