The Future of Remedies against Immunity

​​​​​​​Date and venue

The event took place at Villa Vigoni on Lake Como, Italy,

from the 28th to the 30th of April 2025.

Conference theme

The pending proceedings before the International Court of Justice and the Judgment 159/2023 rendered by the Italian Constitutional Court have sparked renewed interest in the decade-long legal dispute between Italy and Germany concerning reparations for WWII crimes. The judicial saga generated numerous unresolved legal problems that continue to burden Germany and Italy’s political and diplomatic relationship, with vast repercussions on core questions of international law and the relationship between different legal orders.

How to square State immunity and the right to remedy for victims? How can individual human rights be reconciled with the international rule of law? How is the relationship between international and domestic law evolving after Sentenza 238/2014, and what role may/have courts play/ed in this process?

The conference represented an interdisciplinary academic forum addressing constitutional, international, and comparative legal perspectives at the intersection of war crimes (including historical ones), immunities, and human rights. It conveyed scholars and key players from both sides to identify and discussed possible solutions to the current impasse.

Participation during the first two days of the conference was limited to speakers and a limited number of engaged listeners. On the third day, the conference’s results were made public, broadcasted, and openly discussed to integrate the legal conflict into a broader societal debate. Through this process, innovative ideas emerged and were suggested to the political, media, and judicial stakeholders, who participated as an invited audience on the conference’s last day.

The conference was organised in cooperation with the Faculté de Droit/C3RD – Université Catholique de Lille and Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza-Università degli Studi di Torino.