An international Arbitral Tribunal ruled that Indian courts cannot judge the marines as they enjoy immunity as State officials.                  The Tribunal decided that India is entitled to payment of compensation in connection with the victims’ loss of life, physical harm and material damage to property.

The case history goes back to eight years after two Italian marines on board a ship had allegedly fired at and killed two Indian fishermen off the coast of Kerala on February 15, 2012

The Arbitral Tribunal had been constituted under UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on June 26, 2015.

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The Hamburg-based ITLOS, established in 1996, is one of dispute settlement mechanisms under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that entered into force in 1994.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea treaty is the international agreement that resulted from the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III), which took place between 1973 and 1982. The Law of the Sea Convention defines the rights and responsibilities of nations with respect to their use of the world’s oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, the environment, and the management of marine natural resources. The Convention, concluded in 1982, replaced four 1958 treaties. UNCLOS came into force in 1994; a year after Guyana became the 60th nation to ratify the treaty.

The convention set the limit of various areas

Territorial waters :Out to 12 nautical miles (22 kilometres; 14 miles);

Contiguous zone: Beyond the 12-nautical-mile (22 km) limit, there is a further 12 nautical miles (22 km) from the territorial sea baseline limit, the contiguous zone, in which a state can continue to enforce laws in four specific areas: customs, taxation, immigration and pollution;

Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs): These extend 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres; 230 miles) from the baseline. Within this area, the coastal nation has sole exploitation rights over all natural resources.