THE HAGUE: The UN's highest court Friday ruled that Italy had broken international law by allowing its courts to hear civil compensation claims against Germany for Nazi war crimes.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) said modern Germany enjoyed legal immunity for actions committed by Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, while encouraging dialogue between Rome and Berlin to resolve their dispute.
Italy had "violated its obligations to respect the immunity which Germany enjoys under international law by allowing civil claims based on violations committed by the German Reich between 1943 and 1945," ICJ judge Hisashi Owada told a public hearing.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle welcomed the ruling, while his Italian counterpart Giulio Terzi said Rome respected the court's decision but would address other aspects of Berlin's WWII legacy.
At the ICJ, Owada said Italy had to change its laws to ensure the decisions of its courts ceased to infringe "the immunity which Germany enjoys under international law".
The two European Union members had been locked in a legal battle since December 2008, when Germany appealed to the ICJ after an avalanche of lawsuits by victims of Nazi abuses or their relatives.
The row began when Luigi Ferrini, who was deported as a forced labourer to Germany in August 1944, claimed compensation from the German government.
A 2004 Italian Supreme Court decision in his favour led to a flurry of claims by relatives and widows of Nazi war crimes victims, which Germany has refused to meet.
The cases sought compensation for deportations of Italians and other acts by German troops in Italy after Rome quit the Axis to fight alongside the Allies from September 1943 to the end of the war in May 1945.
Berlin said that by permitting claims for such abuses, Italy "failed to respect the jurisdictional immunity" that modern-day Germany enjoys under international law.
Italy argued that the cases were admissible as the abuses amounted to "serious violations of humanitarian law" and were "international crimes" which had precedence over state immunity.
Speaking at ICJ headquarters in The Hague, Owada said that a state's immunity "is a fundamental principle of international legal order."
But he noted that while Germany had taken "significant steps" to compensate Italian victims of the Third Reich, it had excluded prisoners of war from compensation.
"The court considers the matter with suprise and regret that Germany denied compensation to this group of victims," Owada said, adding that the dispute "could be the subject of further negotiations in resolving the issues".
Westerwelle welcomed the ruling, saying it provided legal clarity while in no way lessening German responsibility for the crimes of World War II.
"The case was not lodged against the victims of National Socialism," he said. "Of course it was not about calling into question German responsibility for the crimes of the Second World War or diminishing them."
His Italian counterpart Terzi said Rome respected the findings.
But he added: "Italy intends to continue, as it has done up to now, to address with Germany all the aspects tied to the painful events in World War II through dialogue."
Also before the ICJ as a non-party state was Greece, because of victims of a 1944 German massacre in the village of Distomo, in which 218 people were killed.
Relatives of the Greek massacre victims refiled a case before Italian courts, after a Greek court failed to enforce a ruling for Germany to pay 28.6 million euros in compensation to the plaintiffs.
A Greek foreign ministry statement said the ICJ had ruled on Germany's jurisdictional immunity, and not on its "responsibility for illegal acts committed during the Second World War".
Berlin has also consistently refused to compensate the Distomo claimants, saying the case had been settled between the two countries in 1960.
Established in 1945, the ICJ is the UN's highest court and settles disputes between states.