Italian Marines Case

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 marines on board oil tanker Enrica Lexie.
  • The incident occurred around 20 nautical miles off the coast of Kerala.
  • The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) intercepted Enrica Lexie and detained the Italian marines.
• In Judiciary, the case was transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) which invoked the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA).
  • The SUA Convention was passed in 1988 with the goal of suppressing international terrorism.

Italy’s Arguments

• Italy claimed the marines were only doing their job and enjoyed sovereign functional immunity in India and Italy alone had jurisdiction to deal with them.
• According to Italy, it was an “incident of navigation concerning a ship on the high seas”, outside the territorial waters of India.
  • It has cited Article 97 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS): “In the event of a collision or any other incident of navigation concerning a ship on the high seas”, only the flag state of that ship can launch penal proceedings.
• Italy also criticised the prosecution pursuant to the SUA Convention as equating the incident to an act of terrorism.

India’s Arguments

• India argued it had jurisdiction over the case as the incident happened just 20.5 nautical miles from Indian coast making the area part of India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
• In February 2014, the charges were downgraded from murder to violence meaning the marines would not face the death penalty if convicted and in March 2014, India dropped the SUA charges against the marines.

International Involvement

• In July 2015, Italy submitted a request before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) seeking “provisional measures” directing India to not take any judicial or administrative step against the marines.
  • ITLOS is a Hamburg-based arbitral tribunal under the International Court of Justice, under Article 290, Paragraph 5 of UNCLOS.
• In August 2015, ITLOS directed both countries to suspend all court proceedings in the matter, and asked them not to start new proceedings that might aggravate the dispute or jeopardise proceedings of the arbitral tribunal.
  • It also said that it did not consider the Italian submissions to be “appropriate”.
• In July 2019, the matter finally reached the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

• In May 2020, the court ordered that the marines will not be tried in India, and will face criminal proceedings in Italy.
  • It further held that India was entitled to compensation and asked both countries to consult on the amount of compensation due.
• In a close 3:2 vote, the tribunal ruled that the Italian marines enjoyed diplomatic immunity as Italian state officials under the UNCLOS and held that India must cease to exercise its jurisdiction.

India’s Reaction

• In July 2020, the government decided to accept the May 2020 ruling and sought disposal of the proceedings pending before the SC in view of the tribunal’s ruling.
  • The SC made it clear that it would not pass any order without hearing the victims’ families, who should be given adequate compensation.
• SC’s Current Stand
  • Rs. 4 crore each out of the compensation will go to the next of kin of the two fishermen while Rs. 2 crore will be given to the owner of the fishing vessel in which they were travelling.
  • The compensation has been mutually agreed between India and Italy in terms of the award by an international tribunal.

Source: IE