Ezechia Paolo Reale was an outstanding jurist, deeply involved in establishing the International Criminal Court, initiatives regarding prisons, the right to knowledge, and the fight against misinformation. The speech by Matteo Angioli, secretary of the Global Committee for the Rule of Law, at the commemoration at the Siracusa International Institute.
An expert in international law, a politician, and a friend. Paolo acted with the same dedication and seriousness both in his closest community and the international community.
He became the Secretary General of the Siracusa International Institute in 2010, fully taking up the legacy of Professor Cherif Bassiouni. Just over a year later, I finally met in person – as a member of the Radical Party and collaborator of Marco Pannella – those considered among the main architects of the establishment of the International Criminal Court, Cherif Bassiouni and Paolo Reale himself. I met them together right here at the Institute.
His contribution to the drafting of the Rome Statute of 1998 is well known, as is his participation in the Review Conference in Kampala in 2010, where he dealt with advancing the definition of the crime of aggression.
It is no coincidence that it was Paolo Reale, in a meeting with then Minister of Justice Marta Cartabia – a meeting also attended by Giulio Terzi – who contributed to the creation of a commission, of which he was a member, tasked with incorporating punitive measures for international crimes and aggression into national law.
His commitment to justice and international legality is slowly bearing fruit, particularly at the European level regarding the war in Ukraine. In the last European Council on March 20, the EU reiterated its commitment to “ensure full accountability for war crimes and other serious crimes committed in relation to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. In this context, progress made in the establishment of a special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, within the framework of the Council of Europe, represents an important step.” I will return to this shortly.
Naturally, Paolo also took an interest in and worked on prisons, with the Radical Party and Nessuno Tocchi Caino, helping to raise awareness among governments and the public about the severe conditions suffered by detainees and prison officers, and contributing to the development of legislative proposals to address, at least partially, the long-standing prison issue and the slowness of Italian justice.
But I would like to return to that meeting over ten years ago to reflect on some of Paolo’s considerations and words that I find important. That day we agreed that the threat to democracy was real, and that the proposal, born with Marco Pannella, to work on a “right to knowledge” was heading in the right direction. We launched a path with a conference where Cherif Bassiouni said: “We are on a radically different path from the one we were on in 1948, the path of human rights and individual responsibility for those who violate these rights.” Paolo echoed him, speaking of the indivisibility and interdependence of fundamental human rights and the attempt to make them “cultural heritage for all,” because the risk is that if one falls, the others will gradually lose meaning. Thus, Paolo immediately became a cornerstone in the initiative for the affirmation of the right to knowledge, which was indeed recognized by the Council of Europe in 2021 and by the Senate’s Human Rights Commission in 2022.
The traditional dangers to freedom and democracy are well known, he said. Absolute arbitrariness in not allowing dissent, imprisoning, discriminating, torturing, and killing. That was how power was exercised, and it was stopped through law. It was taken from the hands of those who held it and exercised it arbitrarily and was given to the people through representative democracy. Today, the danger to democracies is not physical; it is immaterial. “We must ask ourselves what threatens freedom in the new global world,” he argued.
What is always at risk is the same good: democratic participation and public decision-making processes. No longer through physical and violent attack and control, but by depriving citizens of access to relevant information so that they cannot control the correctness and legitimacy of decisions. Decisions that are often directed by the interests of large groups, entities, or hostile governments. Our freedom today is under attack through the hoarding and manipulative use of the enormous mass of information and data available in a system entirely devoid of rules, and therefore devoid of protection.
With this spirit, in 2020, Paolo Reale took legal action, coordinated with the Luigi Einaudi Foundation, requesting access to records from the Civil Protection Department at the Prime Minister’s Office. The goal was to obtain copies of the minutes and attached documents of the Technical Scientific Committee supporting the Prime Ministerial Decrees issued during the Covid-19 emergency.
I remember Paolo’s motto: “Transform information into knowledge.” I believe he was inspired by the American writer John Nesbitt, who wrote: “We are saturated with information but desperately hungry for knowledge.”
The mass of information and sources is so enormous that often one cannot be sure which is right and which is wrong. In this sense, he used the example of Wikileaks. The chaotic dissemination of such a large number of documents did not result in any significant difference in how governments conducted their affairs or in citizens’ awareness. No.
On June 6, 2022, during the assembly of the Global Committee for the Rule of Law “Marco Pannella,” convened and organized in Rome thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Paolo and the Siracusa International Institute, Paolo delivered a very significant speech, which, along with an article published on May 3, 2022, on World Press Freedom Day – titled “The Thin Red Line Between Propaganda and International Crime” – I believe encapsulates Paolo’s thought and action.
Starting from his vast work in international law and specifically on the crime of aggression, Paolo reiterated the concept that “propaganda in favor of an international crime is not freedom of expression; it is a crime.”
The crime of aggression, which was central to the Nuremberg Trials, is an international crime that must be punished. Paolo emphasized that within this crime – that is, the aggression against the territory of a free and democratic state – some of the charges against the German defendants were that they had brought dictatorship to Germany and thus allowed the consolidation of the National Socialist Party with the aim of carrying out political actions that included the persecution of minorities and the initiation of wars of aggression.
Therefore, even the mere establishment, strengthening, and implementation of the action of a political party with those aims at the national level was considered a crime. An international crime.
This is Paolo’s great lesson, in my opinion. He warned us of the danger that the decay of a state, the loss of rights and freedoms, over time becomes a problem for other states, starting with neighboring ones. It seems to me that Russia is an example of this.
“Today,” said Paolo, “we probably need to start talking about these things again because I am convinced that our democracies are under attack by dictatorships, illiberal regimes. They are under attack where we are most vulnerable, where our freedoms exist that we cannot renounce and which someone can take advantage of.”
“Freedom of expression is the typical example. We have this freedom, and we have the duty to protect it because without it, there is no democracy. At the same time, we must be aware that through it, anything can penetrate: an attack at the heart of democracy with the alteration of electoral results and even of the convictions and values we hold dear.”
Paolo explained how our freedom depends on the functioning of democracy based on three key elements: the first is a thorough and adequate parliamentary debate, the second is a free and independent press that must help connect public opinion with institutions; the third is the academic sphere and the world of think tanks, which should scientifically analyze information.
The press’s transmission belt is essential, and Paolo noted that international jurisprudence knows relevant examples of journalists and publishers found guilty of international crimes for hate speech, manipulations, and disinformation spread to the public through media.
Some examples: journalist Julius Strejcher, founder of the German magazine “Der Stürmer,” was convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal for crimes against humanity because the lies with which he described Jews turned out to be a powerful incentive for persecution against them.
Hans Fritzsche, a radio program host and later undersecretary of the Nazi regime’s Ministry of Propaganda, was acquitted in Nuremberg because he was deemed too insignificant compared to the overall Nazi design, but was sentenced by a German ordinary court to seven years in prison.
The same fate befell Otto Dietrich, head of the Reich’s press office and undersecretary of the same Ministry of Propaganda.
The most recent and significant case is that examined by the International Tribunal for Rwanda, which in 2003 resulted in the life imprisonment and 35 years in prison for the two founders of “Radio Mille Colline,” known as “Radio Machete” and “Radio Hate,” and the life sentence of the founder and publisher of the weekly Kangura, for the campaign of hatred and disinformation that contributed to the Tutsi genocide.
Are there voices in Russia today like those of the convicted I have evoked? I believe so. And not only in Russia. What will happen if they are not silenced through international justice mechanisms? What will happen to the Russians and not only them if they continue to spread their words of hate, if they continue to poison the wells? I think we can guess what Paolo would have said.
Paolo was a valuable protagonist in the journey of building international justice and promoting the rule of law and human rights. It was an honor and a privilege to share years of activity with him in the Global Committee for the Rule of Law, chaired by Giulio Terzi. And it is also in his name that we will continue our activities.
In my eyes, the initiatives, research, interventions, and always demanding and non-trivial activities he oversaw were conducted with confidence and serenity, which made Paolo a person in total harmony with the extraordinary. Thank you, Paolo.