Longobardo & Violi: Access to justice for atrocities in the comparison of land-mark cases on state immunity in Brazil and Italy

Marco Longobardo (Univ. of Westminster - Law) & Federica Violi (Erasmus Univ. of Rotterdam - Law) have posted Access to justice for atrocities in the comparison of land-mark cases on state immunity in Brazil and Italy (Internaitonal Journal of Human Rights, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article investigates differences and similarities in the approach of Italian and Brazilian domestic courts to the topic of access to justice for atrocities and the role of state immunity, taking particular note of the limited and select dialogue between the two judiciaries and reflecting on the potential for further developments of the customary international law rule on state immunity. To do so, the article first outlines the rule on state immunity and offers an overview of the articulated Italian case law on why state immunity cannot bar access to justice for atrocities, considering the judicial developments occurred after 2004. The paper moves on to describe the recent 2021 decision of the Brazilian Supremo Tribunal Federal, in which the Brazil judiciary seemingly joined the Italian trend against state immunity when atrocities are committed. The two different judicial trends are then compared and analysed, with a discussion on the limited explicit reference to Italian decisions by the Supremo Tribunal Federal. The article concludes the research by describing the likely impact of these judicial trends on future developments on the relationship between access to justice for atrocities and state immunity.