Autore
Rossi, Pierfrancesco

Titolo
L'immunità giurisdizionale dei funzionari del Programma alimentare mondiale nel caso relativo alla morte dell'ambasciatore Luca Attanasio
Periodico
Diritti umani e diritto internazionale
Anno: 2024 - Volume: 18 - Fascicolo: 3 - Pagina iniziale: 707 - Pagina finale: 721

In 2021, the Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Luca Attanasio, and his escort, military police officer Vittorio Iacovacci, were killed during a World Food Programme (WFP) mission in the DRC’s North Kivu province. Criminal proceedings were subsequently initiated before the Court of Rome against two WFP officials accused of violating basic security protocols during the planning of the mission. On 13 February 2024, the Court declared a lack of Italian jurisdiction, recognizing the functional immunity of the two defendants. Drawing from this judgment, the present contribution examines the main issues related to the application of jurisdictional immunities in this case. The analysis focuses on the reasoning by which the Court rejected the main argument advanced by the Public Prosecutor, namely that the officials should not have enjoyed functional immunity due to the lack of formal communication of their names to the Italian Government. It is shown that this argument was difficult to sustain and its rejection is unsurprising. What is more striking, however, is that both the Prosecutor and the Court entirely overlooked another potentially decisive issue: whether the actions of the two defendants were covered by functional immunity even if performed, at least partially, ultra vires. From this perspective, it is arguable, though controversial, that functional immunity did not cover at least some of the actions attributed to the officials. In light of this, the article highlights that all parties involved – the Prosecutor’s Office, the Government and the United Nations – could have done more to contribute to uncovering the truth behind the deaths of Attanasio and Iacovacci.



SICI: 1971-7105(2024)18:3<707:LGDFDP>2.0.ZU;2-
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.12829/115913
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.12829/115913

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