The functioning of diplomatic protection and the case of Giulio Regeni

Abstract

Milestone of the international legal system, the institute of diplomatic protection found its roots in the creation of the Nation State, formally established by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, despite being accepted and applied as international legal mechanism later in the twentieth century. This project was born in order to develop a research on the functioning of diplomatic protection: from the very beginning of its implementation to the role it plays in the present days. A chronological evolution will underline how diplomatic protection has been reshaped and how new international mechanisms for the resolution of conflicts between States developed and coexist with diplomatic protection. The study not only will analyse the conditions necessary for a State to exercise protection over its citizens abroad, but it will also enlighten the cases in which international responsibility upon a State arise, as a consequence of an illicit and as a precondition to take action. In second place, the concept of diplomatic protection will be deepened within the European context. The analysis will begin from the notion of citizenship and will provide the reader with a general framework of what it involves. This research will study the concept of European citizenship with reference to the main treaties regulating the European Community. The analysis will then be concluded with a general overview of the citizenship within the rules of international law. Once a general framework on the functioning of diplomatic protection is provided, the focus will be shifted on a concrete study: the case of Giulio Regeni, an Italian young researcher brutally tortured in El Cairo in 2016. Giulio was a Phd student at Cambridge University and was in El Cairo in order to develop a project on the activity of the Egyptian trade unions. I choose the case of Giulio, since I’ve felt, from the beginning, a great sense of attachment to his sense of justice, to his multicultural spirit and to his attention and will to understand without judging, but with the only will of change for better, a different and sometimes dangerous world. The research over the murderer of Giulio comes together with the attention over the human rights regime and over Egypt, a country in which human rights are anything but respected. On the one hand, human rights have historically played a key role in the evolution of the functioning of diplomatic protection. The establishment of a regime to protect human rights arose after the 2WW, and paved the way to a new and internationally respected framework of rights universally guaranteed to people. On the other hand, Egypt is a State which is nowadays, despite its democratic facade, violating universal human rights. Among the several violations, the regime limits people’s right to express their own political opinions, punishing them with the arrest and incarceration, torturing them on a daily basis. Analysing this case means coming into terms with different worlds; from the political and historical one to the legal one. It means focusing on the steps that has already been taken in order to solve a still, after almost 5 years, open case, as well as the ones that could possibly be taken, according to the international legal system. The story of Giulio has been followed by the world press. The whole world has talked about his tragic death. Despite this world-shacking impact, the international institutions have barely acted in order to give Giulio’s memory justice and in the meantime, the Egyptian government doesn’t stop violating people’s rights. The whole research has a double aim: devising a consistent framework of the institute of diplomatic protection and its steps for implementation with a focus on a concrete case, and analyzing the human rights regime, keystone of the diplomatic protection development and at the same time among the reason why diplomatic protection is implemented.