Personal responsibility under totalitarian regimes

Abstract

<p class="Abstract">After witnessing the Eichmann trial, Hannah Arendt realized that it is a misconception that the occurrence of international crimes (and radical evil) mostly implicates the work of people with evil motives. For this reason, she developed a new form of criminal liability that falls between the two forms of liability of traditional criminal law. By analyzing and emphasizing the role of the ‘hanger-on’ criminal, Arendt got convinced that, when international crimes take place, besides evil intentions or culpable negligence, also <em>thoughtlessness</em> should establish personal criminal liability for them, as when evil occurs without reflection upon it, it can spread limitlessly. Within this theory, each person participating in a bureaucratic institution that is part of a totalitarian regime should be held personally responsible. Although never implemented in practice, this way of reasoning is an interesting contribution to the thinking on international criminal law.</p>

Keywords

• Hannah Arendt
• personal responsibility
• totalitarianism
• radical and banal evil
• thoughtlessness