{"id":14770,"date":"2021-04-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/12-04-2021\/italian-marines-case-2\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T16:44:31","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T11:14:31","slug":"italian-marines-case-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/12-04-2021\/italian-marines-case-2","title":{"rendered":"Italian Marines Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In News<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Recently, the <strong>Supreme Court<\/strong> (SC) has held that the<strong> case against two Italian marines<\/strong> will be closed only after Republic of Italy deposits with it Rs. 10 crore as compensation to victims.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In <strong>February 2012<\/strong>,<strong> two Indian fishermen<\/strong> onboard fishing vessel <strong>St Antony<\/strong> were <strong>gunned down near Lakshadweep islands by two Italian marines<\/strong> on board oil tanker <strong>Enrica Lexie<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>The incident occurred around <strong>20 nautical miles off the coast of Kerala<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The<strong> Indian Coast Guard<\/strong> (ICG) intercepted Enrica Lexie and <strong>detained the Italian marines<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In Judiciary, the case was transferred to the <strong>National Investigation Agency<\/strong> (NIA) which invoked the <strong>Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation<\/strong> (SUA).\n<ul>\n<li>The SUA Convention was passed in <strong>1988 <\/strong>with the goal of <strong>suppressing international terrorism<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Italy\u2019s Arguments<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Italy claimed the<strong> marines were only doing their job<\/strong> and enjoyed sovereign functional immunity in India and Italy alone had jurisdiction to deal with them.<\/li>\n<li>According to Italy, it was an \u201c<strong>incident of navigation concerning a ship on the high seas<\/strong>\u201d, outside the territorial waters of India.\n<ul>\n<li>It has cited <strong>Article 97<\/strong> of the<strong> United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea <\/strong>(UNCLOS): \u201cIn the event of a collision or any other incident of navigation concerning a ship on the high seas\u201d, <strong>only the flag state of that ship can launch penal proceedings<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Italy also <strong>criticised the prosecution pursuant to the SUA Convention<\/strong> as equating the incident to an act of terrorism.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>India\u2019s Arguments<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India argued it had<strong> jurisdiction over the case <\/strong>as the incident happened <strong>just 20.5 nautical miles from Indian coast<\/strong> making the area<strong> part of India\u2019s Exclusive Economic Zone<\/strong> (EEZ).<\/li>\n<li>In February 2014, the charges were <strong>downgraded from murder to violence<\/strong> meaning the marines would not face the death penalty if convicted and in March 2014, India <strong>dropped the SUA charges<\/strong> against the marines.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>International Involvement<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In <strong>July 2015<\/strong>, Italy submitted a request before the <strong>International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea <\/strong>(ITLOS) seeking \u201cprovisional measures\u201d directing India to not take any judicial or administrative step against the marines.\n<ul>\n<li>ITLOS is a<strong> Hamburg-based<\/strong> arbitral tribunal under the <strong>International Court of Justice<\/strong>, under <strong>Article 290<\/strong>, <strong>Paragraph 5 of UNCLOS<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In <strong>August 2015<\/strong>, ITLOS directed both countries to<strong> suspend all court proceedings<\/strong> in the matter, and asked them not to start new proceedings that might aggravate the dispute or jeopardise proceedings of the arbitral tribunal.\n<ul>\n<li>It also said that it <strong>did not consider the Italian submissions <\/strong>to be \u201c<strong>appropriate<\/strong>\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In <strong>July 2019<\/strong>, the matter finally reached the <strong>Permanent Court of Arbitration<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In <strong>May 2020<\/strong>, the court ordered that the <strong>marines will not be tried in India<\/strong>, and will<strong> face criminal proceedings in Italy<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>It further held that <strong>India was entitled to compensation<\/strong> and asked both countries to consult on the amount of compensation due.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In a close 3:2 vote, the tribunal ruled that the Italian marines<strong> enjoyed diplomatic immunity as Italian state officials under the UNCLOS<\/strong> and held that <strong>India must cease to exercise its jurisdiction<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>India\u2019s Reaction<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In <strong>July 2020<\/strong>, the <strong>government <\/strong>decided to <strong>accept the May 2020 ruling <\/strong>and <strong>sought disposal of the proceedings<\/strong> pending before the SC in view of the tribunal\u2019s ruling.\n<ul>\n<li>The SC made it clear that it <strong>would not pass any order without hearing the victims\u2019 families<\/strong>, who should be given adequate compensation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>SC\u2019s Current Stand<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Rs. 4 crore each<\/strong> out of the compensation will go <strong>to the next of kin of the two fishermen <\/strong>while <strong>Rs. 2 crore will be given to the owner of the fishing vessel<\/strong> in which they were travelling.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>compensation has been mutually agreed between<\/strong> India and Italy in terms of the award by an international tribunal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:624px\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color:#fff2cc; width:6.5in\">\n<p><strong>United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is an international agreement that came into force in <strong>1982<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It is also known as the<strong> Law of the Sea Convention<\/strong> or the <strong>Law of the Sea Treaty<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It divides marine areas into<strong> five main zones namely<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Internal Waters.<\/li>\n<li>Territorial Sea.<\/li>\n<li>Contiguous Zone.<\/li>\n<li>Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).<\/li>\n<li>High Seas.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>It provides a <strong>framework for state jurisdiction in maritime spaces<\/strong>. It provides a different legal status to different maritime zones.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Permanent Court of Arbitration<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\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>It was <strong>established in 1899<\/strong> and has headquarters at<strong> The Hague<\/strong>, the Netherlands.<\/li>\n<li>In real terms it is <strong>not a court<\/strong>, it is <strong>an organizer of arbitral tribunals to resolve conflicts<\/strong> between member states, international organizations, or private parties.<\/li>\n<li>All decisions delivered by it are called \u201c<strong>awards<\/strong>\u201d and are <strong>binding on all the parties in the dispute and have to be carried out without delay<\/strong>. They <strong>cannot appeal against <\/strong>it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Timeline of the Case<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cfstatic.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/file_library\/mix_content\/132097729121547230_image.png\" style=\"height:763px; width:542px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (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\">TOI<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-what-is-the-italian-marines-case-7266450\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News Recently, the Supreme Court (SC) has held that the case against two Italian marines will be closed only after Republic of Italy deposits with it Rs. 10 crore as compensation to victims. Background In February 2012, two Indian fishermen onboard fishing vessel St Antony were gunned down near Lakshadweep islands by two Italian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[57,51,30,50,34,35,64,90,63,89],"class_list":["post-14770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-effect-of-policies-politics-of-developed-developing-countries-on-indias-interests","tag-executive-judiciary","tag-gs-2","tag-important-international-institutions","tag-india-foreign-relations","tag-international-organisations-groupings","tag-its-bodies-agencies","tag-their-structure-mandate","tag-united-nations","tag-various-agencies-fora"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/6771710current-affairs.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14770","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=14770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49710,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14770\/revisions\/49710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}