L’invio di armi all’Ucraina fra Costituzione e diritto internazionale

Arms shipment to Ukraine between the Italian Constitution and International Law

Abstract

The essay analyses the Italian dispatch of weapons in support of the Ukrainian resistance by attempting to systemise Constitutional principles with the rules of international law, adopting a three-level perspective prism. First of all, to consider Article 11 of the Italian Constitution in its entirety in the light of its ratio in order to examine its scope and legal impact according to the hierarchical rank of the corresponding postulates of international law, taking into account the fact that both general international law (ex Art. 10, para. 1, Const.) and international treaties (ex Art. 117, para. 1, Const.) constitute, in the Italian legal system, a limit to the exercise of executive and legislative power. Secondly, in order to ascertain under what grounds the sending of weapons can be justified under international law, we consider the hypotheses of collective self-defence, support for the exercise of individual self-defence by Ukraine, and collective countermeasures exercised uti universi in response to a breach of obligations erga omnes. Finally, there is the question of whether the decision to send arms shifts Italy’s qualification in the chessboard of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in terms of the discipline of neutrality, according to the rules of ius in bello.

Keywords: Sending arms; Article 11 Constitution; Prohibition of the use of force; Self-defence; Erga omnes obligations; Neutrality