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Enrica Lexie Case: India loses jurisdiction, but entitled to Compensation by Italy, Rules Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA)
The Permanent Court of Arbitration, in Enrica Lexie case, held that India is entitled to claim compensation from Italy.It also held that the Marines are entitled to immunity in relation to the acts that they committed during the incident of 15 February 2012 and that India is precluded from exercising its jurisdiction over the Marines.
Eight years after Indian police arrested two Italian marines, a five-member international tribunal rejected India’s contention that the soldiers, who were accused of killing Indian fishermen, could be tried in Indian courts and ordered India to cease all criminal proceedings against them.
The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration on Thursday, delivered an extract of the final award of the ad-hoc tribunal constituted to settle disputes related to the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Referring to UNCLOS, in 2015 Italy took India to the International Tribunal of the Law of the Seas in Hamburg. Further, the matter went to the Arbitral Tribunal where both countries made detailed pleadings.
The five-bench Arbitral Tribunal decided that, “The Marines are entitled to immunity in relation to the acts that they committed during the incident of 15 February 2012, and that India is precluded from exercising its jurisdiction over the Marines”.
Further, the tribunal ordered that in the view of the commitment expressed by Italy during the proceedings to resume its criminal investigation into the events of 15 February 2012, "that India must take the necessary steps to cease to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over the Marines, and that no other remedies are required”.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration, in Enrica Lexie case, has unanimously held that India is entitled to claim compensation from Italy, holding that Italy has acted in breach of the Article 87, paragraph 1, subparagraph (a), and Article 90 of the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and that India is entitled to payment of compensation in connection with "loss of life, physical harm, material damage to property (including to the "St. Antony") and moral harm suffered by the captain and other crew members of the "St. Antony", which by its nature cannot be made good through restitution.
Both of these decisions were passed by (by 3:2 majority), with the negative votes cast by India’s P.S. Rao and Patrick Robinson of Jamaica. The other three members were Italy’s Professor Francesco Francioni, South Korea’s Jin-Hyun Paik Korea and Russia’s Vladimir Golitsyn as the president of the Tribunal.
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