Judgment 238/2014 of the Italian Constitutional Court: In search of a way out Paolo Palchetti* 1. In Judgment 238/2014 the Constitutional Court unhesitatingly gave precedence to the right to jurisdictional protection over compli- ance with international law. The high costs of the judgment in terms of respect for international law – and of the constitutional values en- shrined in Articles 10 and 11 of the Italian Constitution – are apparent. Yet, taking into account the situation created by the judgment of the International Court of Justice, the risk of reaching such a breaking point was a real one. This risk should have led political organs to give greater consideration to the interests of the victims when giving execu- tion to the judgment of the International Court of Justice. Apparently, nothing was done in this regard. 2. More than the outcome, it is the poor reasoning behind it that is striking. Given the complexity of the case, one would have expected the Court to engage in a thorough assessment of the weight to be given to the competing interests at stake in the light of the concrete circum- stances of the case. By balancing such interests, the Court could have helped to shed some light on the leeway afforded by the Constitution to the political organs in order to find a way out of this situation. In fact, while the Court acknowledged that ‘balancing is one of “the ordinary tasks that this Court is asked to undertake in all cases within its compe- tence”’, 1 nothing of the sort was attempted. When reading the judgment * Professor of International Law, University of Macerata. This is a short version of an article due to appear in the 2015 issue of the Italian Yearbook of International Law. 1 Judgment no 238 (2014), English translation provided by the Italian Constitutional Court, <www.cortecostituzionale.it/documenti/download/doc/recent_judgments/ S238_2013_en.pdf>, para 3.1. QIL, Zoom out II (2014), 44-47