AbstractThe main consequence of Sentenza 238/2014 is that Germany has been denied jurisdictional immunities before Italian courts. However, the inflexible conception of the right of access to courts adopted by the Corte Costituzionale gives rise to a number of questions that go well beyond the issue at stake in Judgment 238/2014. First, there is the issue of whether the right of access to justice should also prevail over the international customary rule on immunity from execution. Secondly, one

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... may ask whether the need to protect the right provided by Article 24 of the Italian Constitution could trump the criteria established by Italian law for exercising civil jurisdiction in order to allow access to justice in respect to all international crimes, even those committed outside Italian territory and involving individuals having no link to Italy. Finally, there is the question of whether a sacrifice of the right of access to justice would be justified if alternative, non-judicial means of redress were available to the victims; in particular, whether an alternative means of redress should in any case ensure to each and every individual victim full compensation or whether instead, in light of the specific circumstances of the case—the fact that the crimes occurred in the course of an international armed conflict affecting hundreds of thousands of victims—such alternative means could provide only symbolic compensation based on a lump sum settlement. This chapter aims at exploring these and possibly other issues arising in connection to the broad interpretation of the principle of access to justice given by the Corte Costituzionale.