A number of international agreements and measures had been passed which purported to waive the claims of the victims involved, or make reparations.

Luigi Ferrini was an Italian who was deported from occupied Italy and forced to work in a munitions plant in Germany.

However, during 2004 the Italian Court of Cassation reversed this judgment on the grounds that state immunity is lost when international crimes are alleged.

[2] Max Josef Milde was a German soldier, member of the Hermann Goering Division, who during 2004 was convicted in absentia for war crimes involving a massacre of civilians in the Italian towns of Civitella in Val di Chiana and San Pancazio.

[3] On June 10, 1944, hundreds of people in the Greek village of Distomo were massacred by German troops in retaliation for Resistance activities nearby.

However, the Greek Justice Minister refused to grant the required permission to enforce the judgment in Greece.

[6] The counterclaim was rejected on the basis that atrocities predated the European Convention for the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes and so the Court did not have jurisdiction.

[8] By a vote of 12 to 3, the court rejected both alleged exceptions to the doctrine of state immunity proposed by Italy.

Addressing the first strand, the court noted that allowing a judicial enquiry into the gravity of the crime would defeat the purpose of immunity, which is to avoid the trial process.

[16] The court further noted that no state practice supported the argument that jus cogens rules displace immunity.

[17] Addressing the third strand, the Court distinguished between immunity and the substantive rules of international law by which Germany might still owe reparations.