Immunity from Civil Jurisdiction: Where Do We Go from Here? Assessing the Relevance of Recent Opposing Trends in the Conceptualisation of State Immunity

Abstract

Traditional rules concerning the immunity of States from jurisdiction are currently challenged by Italian domestic courts, seeking the possibility to provide exceptions to foreign immunity based upon the gravity of the foreign State’s conduct and the consequences on human rights following recognition of State immunity. Such a trend is opposed to others that – for example – recognize a blanket of immunity to international organisations even where these do not establish internal procedures to adjudicate their conducts. The aim of the present work is to reconstruct the opposing emerging trends so to reflect on their value in the promotion of new rules, and to determine their consequences in terms of “crisis of the law of State immunity”.

Keywords: International Law, Immunity, Human Rights, International Organisations, Evolutionary trends, Westphalian Model