International crimes: The Democratic Party issues a law: "No more Almasri cases, Nordio will be found."

Yesterday, during a press conference in the Chamber of Deputies , the Democratic Party (PD) presented a bill to introduce the international crimes code into Italian law. "Why can't Ukrainian women who were raped and are now refugees in Italy receive justice in our country? How can we prevent Italy from becoming a refuge for people suspected of international crimes committed in Gaza or Sudan? If we had had this law a few months ago, " said Laura Boldrini , the first signatory and Chair of the Chamber's Standing Committee on Human Rights in the World , "Italy could have tried Almasri, and the victims of his torture, rape, and violence would have received justice. Without subterfuge, without state planes bringing him back to his homeland to continue torturing and raping children, without alibis."

In practice, the draft law, consisting of 71 articles, intends to introduce universal jurisdiction : anyone suspected or accused of committing a war crime or crime against humanity, regardless of their nationality and where they committed it, if they are in Italy can be investigated, arrested, and tried by our country. The draft law's report recalls that Italy ratified the statute of the International Criminal Court in 1999, and then passed the law regulating its procedures in 2012. However, the inclusion of war crimes and crimes against humanity in our code of procedure has always been lacking. This gap the draft law aims to fill by granting jurisdiction over war crimes to ordinary judges. "At the beginning of his term," Boldrini continued, "Minister Nordio announced the introduction of the International Crimes Code. However, this promise was not followed through on, and the measure disappeared completely. Why did the International Crimes Code disappear from the government and majority's horizons? Now that we have presented the bill, we expect the majority's support. Otherwise, Nordio will have to explain what or who made him change his mind."

The MEP then explained: "Under the international crimes code, which many other EU countries already have, anyone, of any nationality, suspected of committing war crimes or crimes against humanity anywhere in the world can be investigated, arrested, and tried in our country when they are in Italy. Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Yoav Gallant, all accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity , would have to answer for their crimes before an Italian judge if they came to Italy ." What is therefore needed is " a major paradigm shift that introduces the principle of universal jurisdiction into our legal system. At a time when international law is under attack, as are international tribunals, when Trump is sanctioning International Criminal Court judges as if they were drug traffickers, when Netanyahu continues to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity unchallenged, the Democratic Party is sending a clear signal in defense of international law and the multilateral framework that since the end of the Second World War has ensured that the law of the jungle, not the law of the jungle, prevails."

Also present at the press conference were Chiara Braga, leader of the Democratic Party in the Chamber of Deputies, Debora Serracchiani, the Democratic Party's justice commissioner, and Federico Gianassi, the Democratic Party's leader in the Justice Committee. Gianassi told us: "This is an important initiative that will uncover the government. Nordio had repeatedly promised rapid approval of this code, but then the issue disappeared from the radar. Why is the crime of torture included in it? Why are international crimes increasingly widespread, and their repression would cause embarrassment for our international partners? The global context presents us with a crossroads: either we go back to a time when states had absolute power, even of life and death, over defenseless citizens, or we choose the future by betting on the protection of fundamental human rights and the repression of the most serious crimes, even if committed far from our borders ." The bill was inspired by Amnesty International and worked on it by Professor Alessandra Annoni, full professor of international law at the University of Ferrara, Professors Triestino Mariniello, full professor of international criminal law at Liverpool John Moores University (UK) and legal representative of the victims of Gaza at the ICC, and Antonio Marchesi, associate professor of international law at the University of Teramo.

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Angela Stella