Daily Times

The International Court of Justice said Friday that Germany withdrew its call for urgent steps against Italy which Berlin said wrongly continued to claim World War II compensation. Berlin dropped a request for so-called provisional measures ordering Italy not to auction any German properties as a result of civil claims “following recent judicial developments in Italy” and after exchanges between the two countries, the ICJ said in a statement. The UN’s top court, based in The Hague, the Netherlands, therefore cancelled hearings on the measures which were due to be held on Monday and Tuesday. But the overall case itself is “still pending”, officials at the court told AFP. Berlin had not fully withdrawn the overall case because an Italian decree guaranteeing that courts would not seize the properties for compensation had not yet been passed by parliament, the German foreign ministry told AFP. On April 29, Germany filed a complaint against Italy on the grounds that it was “failing to respect its jurisdictional immunity” and requested the emergency measures. Faced with a growing number of cases before Italian courts brought by families of victims of Nazi crimes, Germany filed the original case with the ICJ in 2008. The court ruled in 2012 that Italy had failed in its obligations by allowing legal proceedings to be brought to obtain compensation from Berlin for victims of Nazi crimes. Italian courts had “since 2012… entertained a significant number of new claims… in violation of Germany’s sovereign immunity,” Berlin’s application said.