Abstract

The Italian Supreme Court of Cassation has recently delivered another judgement on the nature of jurisdictional links provided for by Article 15 of the 2000 United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC). While it has correctly qualified the link established in Article 15(4) as optional ground of jurisdiction, an obiter dictum used to strengthen its reasoning deals again with the character of Article 15(2). The Court shifts from its previous case law based on Article 3 of Law No 146 of 2016 on the implementation of UNTOC in Italian Law, which provides for a mere definition of transnational crime, as a primary requirement for the application of Article 15(2) of UNTOC, defining the latter as a self-executing rule of international law and thus as establishing a mandatory jurisdictional link. However, such interpretation seems to be contrary to the rules on interpretation of treaties established by Article 31(1) of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.