Chimalpahin Conference 2007

Justice Memorialized: The Allied Governments’ Free Pass to the Italian Fascist War Criminals during the Italo-Ethiopian War 1935-1936

The primary goal of the paper is to illuminate the disparity of treatment directed toward Italian Fascist war criminals and the consequent memorializing of justice in the post-World War II world. In order to highlight the historical inequities, it will be shown that Italy’s Fascist regime perpetrated war crimes against Ethiopians during the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935-1936. Second, it will be argued that not only did the Allied governments affirmatively reject Ethiopian war crimes claims within the United Nations War Crimes Commission, what is more, the Allies chose not to bring Italy’s alleged war criminals within the jurisdiction of the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg or Tokyo or any other war crimes tribunal for various political and legal reasons. Accordingly, a major focus of this paper will be on how the Allied Governments shaped the world’s understanding of history and memory as it pertains to the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity leading up to, during, and after World War II.

Angela Ruocco is an International History and Diplomacy Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland in the Department of History. She holds a Bachelor's in International Relations and History from Notre Dame (Md.) and a Master's in Government from Johns Hopkins University. She also possesses a law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law. She is admitted to practice law in Maryland and has litigated asylum law cases from around the world. Her academic interests are in the intersection of diplomatic history, law, and memory; she is pursuing research particularly relating to war crimes perpetrated by Italians in Ethiopia 1935-1936.