Between Sovereignty and Race: The Bombardment of Hospitals in the Italo-Ethiopian War and the Colonial Imprint of International Law

Nicola Perugini,Neve Gordon

doi:10.13169/statecrime.8.1.0104

Nicola Perugini, Neve Gordon

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.13169/statecrime.8.1.0104

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Abstract

Italy's war crimes during the 1935–1936 invasion of Ethiopia have been broadly documented by different historians of Italian colonialism. However, its systematic bombardment of medical facilities operated by different Red Cross Societies is much less known. Relying on archival materials, we show how the fascist regime presented these attacks as legitimate reprisal; it was, the Italians claimed, the Ethiopian forces who had violated international law, particularly the principle of distinction, when they used medical facilities to hide. Reconstructing the debates about the Red Cross medical units, we show how Ethiopia's sovereign status rendered international law applicable, since the war was carried out between two internationally recognized countries rather than between a sovereign state and its colonial subjects. Simultaneously however, Ethiopia's status as a sovereign state was extremely precarious. The African country was successfully framed by both Italy and the Red Cross as uncivilized through the creation of an artificial link between the ostensible inability to follow the principle of distinction (i.e. hiding behind medical units) and the population's race. The move from sovereignty to race is, we claim, illuminating because it reveals how the inclusion of Ethiopia into the family of nations not only did not undermine the colonial imprint of international law, but also helped cement it. It is therefore crucial to think about the process of colonial inclusion into the liberal order of humanity against the grain, and to reveal how integration through sovereignty can be transmogrified into racist exclusion.

Highlights

Between Sovereignty and Race: The Bombardment of Hospitals in the Italo-Ethiopian War and the Colonial Imprint of International Law
We argue that the Italo-Ethiopian war and the question of “hospital shields” reveals how sovereignty has historically been inflected by race, which explains, in turn, the discriminatory application of international law, laying bare the law’s colonial imprint from a new perspective
The Italians went on to argue that “the only clause of the Geneva Conventions which the Abyssinans regard as valid, and clamorously invoke on every occasion, is that which lays down that any persons taking refuge under the sign of the Red Cross should be secure from aerial bombardment.”17 To debunk the Ethiopian accusations, the Italians submitted a number of memorandums to the League of Nations, and these included aerial pictures similar to those published by Vittorio Mussolini in his memoir, which ostensibly showed Ethiopian efforts to shield themselves behind the ICRC medical units

Summary

Between Sovereignty and Race

Ethiopia’s treatment as a non-equal member of the family of nations is arguably most apparent from the debates around the use of the Red Cross emblem and medical facilities as shields In these debates, the Italian regime explained that because the Ethiopians belonged to an inferior civilization, they systematically ignored international humanitarian law. The Italians went on to argue that “the only clause of the Geneva Conventions which the Abyssinans regard as valid, and clamorously invoke on every occasion, is that which lays down that any persons taking refuge under the sign of the Red Cross should be secure from aerial bombardment.” To debunk the Ethiopian accusations, the Italians submitted a number of memorandums to the League of Nations, and these included aerial pictures similar to those published by Vittorio Mussolini in his memoir, which ostensibly showed Ethiopian efforts to shield themselves behind the ICRC medical units.. International law did not apply to the black side of the divide in the same way that it did to the white side, and its denunciations focused on the corporate protection of the Geneva humanitarian institution and its emblem rather than on the protection of civilians regardless of their race

State impunity

Conclusion