Abstract

This introduction – retrospective and prospective – aims to contextualize the ruling of the Italian Constitutional Court No. 192/2023 regarding the case of Giulio Regeni. Firstly, it outlines the scholarship debate, which, to date, has primarily focused on the international obligations arising from the UN Convention against Torture, likely violated by Egypt (starting from the obligation of judicial assistance and cooperation enshrined in Article 9), as well as the diplomatic and jurisdictional means of dispute resolution set out in the Convention (Article 30). Secondly, it highlights, on one hand, the momentum generated by the Constitutional Court’s ruling, which resolved the stalemate in the criminal proceedings against the alleged perpetrators of torture acts before Italian courts, and, on the other hand, the attitude of greater caution that, thus far, appears to have inspired the action of the Italian Government at the interstate level. Finally, some prospective considerations underline the importance of certain passages of the Constitutional Court’s ruling for the future debate surrounding, among others, the obligation to extradite or prosecute (aut dedere aut iudicare), as stipulated in Article 7 of the Convention