As Greece Surrenders , It's Interesting To See Sovereign Rights Still Exist - for Certain Nations In Europe !

http://www.athensnews.gr/issue/13482/53266

Greece and Italy have now exhausted the last legal avenue

by Michael Kearney 13 Feb 2012

Last week’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgment affirmed, by reference to the fundamental rule of state sovereignty, that the German state has immunity from proceedings in Italian or Greek courts where victims have been seeking compensation for Nazi war crimes.    Dissenting judges did suggest that given the nature of the crimes, the court should allow the pursuit of justice to override the fundamental rule of sovereign immunity to some extent.    Few observers will have been surprised by the court’s conclusion that sovereign immunity could not be undermined in any way; indeed, the Supreme Court of Greece (AED) arrived at the same conclusion in 2002.   While legal scholars will find much in the judgment to analyse and debate, their focus will be on the future development of international law, the general opinion being that Greece and Italy have now exhausted the last legal avenue for attaining remedy for Nazi-era crimes.    The court implied as much when it acknowledged that the claims of the victims had not been settled and that resolution of the matter must be a matter for negotiation between the states involved. Thus the question of justice, howsoever delayed, for the victims of grave human rights abuses, has been excised from the realm of law and is once again a matter of political concern. It should be noted that there continues to exist a duty for states to investigate and prosecute individuals allegedly responsible for war crimes, irrespective of where they occurred, or of the nationality of alleged perpetrator or victims. This duty, rooted in the Geneva Conventions of 1949, is rarely exercised, and given the passage of time is unlikely to be of much utility to the Greek and Italian plaintiffs of today.   While neither Greece nor Italy will be satisfied with the ICJ’s decision, few states are likely to dispute a judgment that upholds the sovereign rights, and sovereign equality, of every state. Other than the denial of remedies to victims of atrocity, where else are we likely to see this freshly affirmed sovereignty manifested?   At this point in the economic crisis, where the genuine exercise of state sovereignty often appears to be little more than a fiction since governments and nations are increasingly subject to the formal control and direction of other states, the judgment of the ICJ suggests that challenges to the inequity of the international economic order may, perhaps, be usefully addressed through the framework of international law.