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Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre.
There is fresh movement in the legal tussle between India and Italy over the case of two Italian marines accused of killing two Indian fishermen off the Kerala coast in February 2012, with a five-member Arbitral Tribunal being constituted for arbitration between the two countries.
The tribunal has been constituted under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, Netherlands — which acts as Registry in the arbitration by agreement of both parties — announced on November 6 that the constitution of the tribunal, which will give a final ruling in the dispute, “has been completed”.
While Italy appointed Professor Francesco Francioni on June 26 as one of the five arbitrators, India appointed Judge Patibandla Chandrasekhara Rao on July 24 as an arbitrator.
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After consulting both sides during a meeting in Hamburg on September 30, 2015, the President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) appointed Judge Jin-Hyun Paik of Korea and Judge Patrick Robinson of Jamaica as arbitrators.
Judge Vladimir Golitsyn of Russia was also appointed as an arbitrator and President of the tribunal.
With its constitution being finalised, the tribunal will soon hold a first procedural meeting with the two parties to discuss the procedural framework, including the applicable rules of procedure, and the time-table for written and oral pleas.
On August 24, the ITLOS in Hamburg had announced “provisional measures” in the case, directing that both Italy and India “shall suspend all court proceedings” relating to the matter in the two countries.
It also directed that the two countries refrain from initiating new court proceedings “which might aggravate or extend the dispute submitted to the Annex VII arbitral tribunal or might jeopardise or prejudice the carrying out of any decision which the arbitral tribunal may render”.
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