The European Social Charter as a Parameter for Constitutional Review of Legislation

In 2018, the Corte Costituzionale issued two judgments (No. 120 of 13 June, and No. 194 of 8 November) on the compatibility of two pieces of Italian legislation with the Constitution, including its Article 117(1), whereby the legislator shall act in accordance with Italy’s “international obligations”. These two rulings are remarkable for considering treaties other than the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) for the purposes of constitutional review of legislation. The Corte costituzionale ruled that the European Social Charter is a source of international obligations giving content to the parameter enshrined in Article 117(1) of the Constitution; the Court also ruled that the practice of the Charter's treaty body, the European Committee of Social Right, is authoritative but does not bind Italian judges as to the content and scope of the Charter's provisions. Although significant, these two judgements do not definitively clarify the Corte Costituzionale’s stance on the constitutional place of treaty obligations, having particular regard to the Corte’s recent tendency to curb the Italian legal order’s openness to international law and affirming its own role vis-à-vis Italian (and international) courts.