Status: 04/30/2022 12:09 p.m
Germany has filed a lawsuit against Italy with the International Court of Justice because of new claims for compensation for Nazi war crimes. He had already decided once before that private claims are inadmissible.
Germany has filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Rome in a dispute over compensation payments for Nazi crimes in Italy during World War II. The Federal Republic accuses Italy of having allowed several new proceedings against Germany despite a judgment of the ICJ from 2012, the court said.
Ten years ago, after a long legal dispute, the highest court of the United Nations ruled that Germany did not have to individually compensate Italian military internees and other Italian victims of National Socialism. It thus underpinned the legal principle of state immunity, according to which the judgments won by private prosecutors in Italy are invalid.
The federal government argues that the question of compensation was resolved after the war within the framework of intergovernmental agreements. She appealed to the ICJ at the end of 2008 to have it checked whether judgments passed in Italy that obligated Germany to pay compensation are compatible with international law. The verdicts related to crimes committed between September 1943 and May 1945 during the German occupation of Italy.
Despite the ICJ ruling, further lawsuits
According to the federal government, more than 25 new claims for damages against the German state for Nazi crimes during the Second World War have been filed in Italy since the 2012 verdict. In many of these cases, courts have ordered Germany to pay compensation.
To settle claims in two cases, Italian courts are trying to seize properties in Rome owned by the German state. A court had said it had until May 25 to decide whether to order a sale of the buildings, some of which house German cultural, archaeological, historical and educational institutions.