Italy¶

The Italian cases show a government that routes around its courts, and institutions that fall silent when a foreign listing arrives. Judges at home and abroad are treated as obstacles to be stepped round, and the same habit shows as an absence when a foreign executive lists an Italian association: no institution tells the bank, the public or the listed party where Italian law stands. Private actors and politicians step into that silence and carry out the listing’s consequences on their own initiative, so a foreign decision takes effect in Italy without any Italian authority having decided anything.

The clerk’s briefs¶

October 2026: The last of the hardware¶

The collective is winding up the association behind it, which, one of those handling the dissolution told NRC, Italian law requires to leave no assets behind; it has spent the past weeks closing its servers and wiping their disks. One of the last pieces of hardware, a server in Amsterdam it was about to dispose of, was seized by Dutch police on 13 October 2026, NRC reported, at the request of the United States, and a copy of its contents sent on. One of the volunteers handling the dissolution, speaking anonymously for his safety, said he was not worried, but surprised. The clerks note that the dissolution did not end the matter, and that the archive outlived the organisation that kept it.

September 2026: The account goes to court¶

On 8 September 2026 the association behind the collective filed an urgent application at the Tribunale di Pisa under article 700 of the civil procedure code, asking that its account be restored or the balance moved to an account of its choosing. The first hearing was set for 22 October in Pisa, Umanita Nova reported. By October, Italia che cambia reported, the funds were still on a technical account, unavailable, pending a ruling or a delisting. The clerks note that the only court in this part of the file was asked in by the listed party, and that its decision is still to come.

September 2026: The list goes to the prosecutor¶

On 2 September 2026 the Fratelli d’Italia politicians Carlo Fidanza and Augusta Montaruli filed a complaint with the prosecutors against the collective “e dei suoi fondatori”, with possible offences running “dal favoreggiamento fino a condotte potenzialmente piu gravi”. The clerks observe that a foreign listing, made without a hearing, was offered to an Italian prosecutor as a reason to look at named Italians: the archive step, with the register supplied from abroad.

September 2026: The bank asks for cover¶

On 26 August 2026 the United States designated Autistici/Inventati, a volunteer collective in Pisa that ran mail and hosting services, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, without a charge or a hearing. Banca Etica suspended the account of the association behind it and said in public that, “in assenza di qualsiasi pronuncia e indicazione da parte delle istituzioni italiane ed europee”, nothing told a bank how to protect itself; it had turned to the banking associations ABI and Assopopolari and to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The collective’s services ended on 18 September. The full account, including the Banca d’Italia page saying a foreign listing creates no obligation to freeze, is in Not in so many words. The clerks note that nobody ordered the bank to cut the tie and no institution answered its request, though a public page of the Bank of Italy already said it need not: self-purification, carried out by the people standing nearby.

January 2026: Referred over Almasri¶

In January 2025 Italy did not surrender Osama Almasri Njeem, a Libyan wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in the running of migrant detention camps, and instead returned him to Libya on a military flight. Rome prosecutors opened proceedings against the prime minister, two ministers and an under-secretary; on 9 October 2025 the Chamber of Deputies refused authorisation to proceed against the ministers. On 26 January 2026 the Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber found Italy in breach of its duty to cooperate and referred it to the Assembly of States Parties, two judges to one. The Assembly takes it up in December 2026. The clerks note that a court’s warrant was set aside by a flight, and the judges at home were kept from the ministers by a vote.

August 2025: Luxembourg sides with the judges¶

On 1 August 2025 the EU Court of Justice ruled that governments may designate safe countries of origin by legislation, “provided that such a designation can be subject to effective judicial review”, and that a country which does not protect its whole population cannot be on the list. The cases came from Italian judges who had refused to validate the detention of the first three groups of asylum seekers taken to Albania. The government had answered them with a measure listing 19 safe countries, Bangladesh and Egypt among them. The clerks observe that detention moved across the Adriatic was followed there by Italian judges, and that the EU court required what they were asking for: effective judicial review.

February 2025: The signature not given¶

On 7 February 2025, 78 states endorsed a joint statement in support of the International Criminal Court, warning that “sanctions would severely undermine all situations currently under investigation”. Italy is not on the list, and the government did not explain why. It came about two weeks after Italy flew home a suspect the Court had asked it to surrender. The clerks note that a signature withheld is the cheapest way of loosening a tie.

November 2023: Across the Adriatic¶

On 6 November 2023 the prime ministers of Italy and Albania signed a protocol under which some of the migrants rescued in the Mediterranean by Italian authorities are to be held in Albania while their asylum claims are examined: a reception centre in Shengjin and a repatriation centre at Gjader, with a maximum capacity of 3,000. The protocol speaks of Italian jurisdiction alone. The clerks note that the detention moves abroad, and the judges who review it do not.