ages." According to Italy, this provision is frequently invoked by individuals against the Italian State, and substantial sums have been awarded to claimants where appropriate. If Raytheon and Machlett suffered damage caused by violations by Italian public authorities of the FCN Treaty and the Supplementary Agreement, an Italian court would, it was contended, have been bound to conclude that the relevant acts of the public authorities were wrongful acts for the purposes of Article 2043. It is common ground between the Parties that implementing legislation ("ordini di esecuzione'y was enacted (Law No. 385 of 15 June 1949 and Law No. 910 of 1 August 1960), to give effect in Italy to the FCN Treaty and Supplementary Agreement, but that their provisions cannot be invoked inprotection of individual rights before the Italian courts unless those provisions are regarded by the courts as self-executing. In order to show that the relevant provisions would be so regarded, decisions of the Court of Cassation have been cited by Italy in which provisions of the FCN Treaty (not the provisions relied on in the present case) have been applied for the benefit of United States nationals who have invoked them before Italian courts, and a provision of a treaty between Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany, said to be comparable with Article V of the FCN Treaty, was given effect. 62. However, those decisions were not based on Article 2043 of the Italian Civil Code; and the treaty provisions applied were given effect in conjunction with municipal legislation or the provisions of other treaties, through the mechanism of a most-favoured-nation provision. In none of the cases cited was the FCN Treaty provision relied on to establish the wrongfulness of conduct of Italian public officials. When in 1971 Raytheon consulted two Italian jurists on the question of local remedies for the purposes of a diplomatic claim, it apparently did not occur to either of them to refer even as a possibility to action under Article 2043 in conjunction with the FCN Treaty. It thus appears to the Chamber to be impossible to deduce, from the recent jurisprudence cited, what the attitude of the Italian courts would have been had Raytheon and Machlett brought an action, some 20 years ago, in reliance on Article 2043 of the Civil Code in conjunction with the provisions of the FCN Treaty and the Supplementary Agreement. Where the determination of a question of municipal law is essential to the Court's decision in a case, the Court will have to weigh the jurisprudence of the municipal courts, and "If this is uncertain or divided, it will rest with the Court to select the interpretation which it considers most in conformity with the law" (Brazilian Loans, P.C.I.J., Series A, Nos. 20/21, p. 124). In the present case, however, it was for Italy to show, as a matter of fact, the existence of a remedy which was open to the United States stockholders and which they failed to employ. The Chamber does not consider that Italy has discharged that burden. 63. It is never easy to decide, in a case where there has in fact been much resort to the municipal courts, whether local remedies have truly been "exhausted". But in this case Italy has not been able to satisfy the