Italy today opened an international arbitration procedure on the case of the two Italian marines, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The decision, which the Parliament had called for, was taken at the end of the necessary direct negotiations with India and in the face of the impossibility of achieving a solution to the dispute.
Italy will immediately ask for measures to be applied to enable Latorre to remain in Italy and Girone to return home while the arbitration procedure takes its course. Italy will also make a broad-ranging and determined effort to ensure that the reasons underlying its position on jurisdiction and immunity are recognised and upheld. The objective is to achieve a positive conclusion to the case – a case that has gone on far too long – of our two marines, to whom the government reiterates its support and solidarity.
In the hours running up to the opening of the arbitration procedure the government informed the Speakers of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committees of the Senate of the Republic and the Chamber of Deputies.
