SERENI, ANGELO PIERO

SERENI, ANGELO PIERO (1908–1967), Italian jurist. Born in Rome, Sereni became professor of international law at the universities of Ferrara and Bologna. After the promulgation of antisemitic legislation in 1938, he left Italy for the United States where he wrote his best known work, The Italian Conception of International Law (1943), which became a standard textbook. Sereni returned to Italy after World War II and resumed his chair at Ferrara. He wrote extensively on international legal disputes and dedicated his major work, Diritto Internazionale (5 vols., 1956–65), to "the sacred memory of Angelo Sereni (Sereni's uncle), Teacher of Justice, and enzo sereni , fallen for Freedom." A number of Sereni's important works touched upon matters of special Jewish interest. In "La situazione giuridica di Gerusalemme" (in Foro Italiano, 83 no. 11–12, 1950), he argued that Israel's sovereignty over West Jerusalem was indisputable since the United Nations resolutions to internationalize Jerusalem were only recommendations that had not been carried out and therefore did not negate Israel's jurisdiction. He also criticized a decision of the Italian Cassation Court in upholding the refusal of the Italian authorities to hand over a Nazi criminal for trial, maintaining that the decision was inconsistent with adherence to the Genocide Convention which recognizes genocide as a political crime. (Alfredo Mordechai Rabello)