46
ELETTRONICA SICULA (JUDGMENT)
adjudication of the Italian courts is essentially the claim which the
United States now brings before this Chamber. The arguments were different, because the municipal court was applying Italian law, whereas
this Chamber applies international law; and, of course, the parties were
different. Yet it would seem that the municipal courts had been fully
seized of the matter which is the substance of the Applicant's claim
before the Chamber. For both claims turn on the allegation that the requisition, by frustrating the orderly liquidation, triggered the bankruptcy,
and so caused the alleged losses.
59. With such a deal of litigation in the municipal courts about what is
in substance the claim now before the Chamber, it was for Italy to demonstrate that there was nevertheless some local remedy that had not been
tried; or at least, not exhausted. This burden Italy never sought to deny. It
contended that it was possible for the matter to have been brought before
the municipal courts, citing the provisions of the treaties themselves, and
allegingtheir violation. This was never done. In the actions brought before
the Court of Palermo, and subsequently the Court of Appeal of Palermo,
and the Court of Cassation, the FCN Treaty and its Supplementary
Agreement were never mentioned. This is not surprising, for, as Italy
recognizes, the way in which the matter was pleaded before the courts
of Palermo was not for Raytheon and Machlett to decide but for the trustee. Furthermore, the local remedies rule does not, indeed cannot, require
that a claim be presented to the municipal courts in a form, and with
arguments, suited to an international tribunal, applying different law to
different parties: for an international claim to be admissible, it is sufficient if the essence of the claim has been brought before the competent
tribunals and pursued as far as permitted by local law and procedures,
and without success.
60. The question, therefore, reduces itself to this : ought Raytheon and
Machlett, suing in their own right, as United States corporations allegedly
injured by the requisition of property of an Italian Company whose shares
they held, have brought an action in the Italian courts, within the general
limitation-period (five years), alleging violation of certain provisions of
the FCN Treaty between Italy and the United States; this mindful of the
fact that the very question of the consequences of the requisition was
already in issue in the action brought by its trustee in bankruptcy, and
that any damages that might there be awarded would pass into the pool of
realized assets, for an appropriate part of which Raytheon and Machlett
had the right to claim as creditors?
61. Italy contends that Raytheon and Machlett could have based such
an action before the Italian courts on Article 2043 of the Italian Civil
Code, which provides that "Any act committed either wilfully or through
fault which causes wrongful damages to another person implies that the
wrongdoer is under an obligation to pay compensation for those dam-